Anna of the Five Towns

Anna Tellwright and her younger sister live with their miserly father in a manufacturing town in the Potteries. He rules the household by fear and that, together with the local Weslyan Methodist Church gives Anna a joyless and narrow life. When Anna is 21 she inherits her mother's fortune but her father will not allow her to manage it and she has to beg him to release any money she needs. She becomes engaged to a member of the congregation, mainly to escape her father. She likes and respects him but later realises that she loves the son of one of her tenant manufacturers. Will Anna follow her heart or stay with the principle of duty which she has always followed?