The Franchise Affair is a 1948 mystery novel by Josephine Tey, in which a small-town lawyer is called on to defend two women accused of kidnapping and mistreating a girl named Betty Kane. Although given a contemporary setting, it is inspired by the 18th-century case of Elizabeth Canning.
The novel was adapted for the film The Franchise Affair in 1951, starring Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray. It has also been adapted twice for television, in 1962 and 1988, and once for radio in 2005.
In 1990, the UK Crime Writers' Association named it one of The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time.
It is most probably based on a reading of Arthur Machen's non-fiction account of the case The Canning Wonder (1925) as the plot follows a similar line to Machen's thinking.[1]