Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Man from the North | 1898 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 2 | Anna of the Five Towns / Cupid and Commonsense | 1902 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 3 | Tales of the Five Towns | 1905 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 4 | The Grim Smile of the Five Towns | 1907 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 5 | The Old Wives’ Tale | 1908 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 6 | Clayhanger | 1910 | Arnold Bennett | N/A |
| 7 | The Card / Denry the Audacious | 1911 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 8 | The Card | 1911 | Arnold Bennett | N/A |
| 9 | The Matador of the Five Towns | 1912 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 10 | The Old Adam | 1913 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 11 | Married Life / The Regent | 1913 | Arnold Bennett | Buy |
| 12 | These Twain | 1915 | Arnold Bennett | N/A |
Arnold Bennett’s Five Towns novels and collections are set in a fictionalized version of the six pottery towns of North Staffordshire, where he grew up. (Bennett reduced the six to five for euphony.) The series covers shopkeepers, printers, manufacturers, and their families across more than a dozen years of publishing.
Anna of the Five Towns (1902) was the first to use the setting. The Old Wives’ Tale (1908), which follows two sisters over several decades, is often considered Bennett’s best novel. Clayhanger (1910) and These Twain (1915) are part of a separate family saga that also appears in the Clayhanger Family series. The short story collections, Tales of the Five Towns (1905) and The Grim Smile of the Five Towns (1907), fill in the world with smaller portraits of provincial life.