Barchester Towers (Everyman's Library)

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

Anthony Trollope was well aware that the seemingly parochial power struggles that determine the action of Barchester Towers -- struggles whose comic possibilities he exploits to hilarious effect -- actually went to the heart of mid-Victorian English society, and had, in other times and other guises, led to civil war and constitutional upheaval. Thai awareness heightens the comedy and intensifies the drama in this magnificent novel and it transforms the story of a fight for ascendency among the clergy and dependants of a great English cathedral into something fundamental and universal. This is the second novel in Trollope's Barsetshire series.

This 1857 sequel to The Warden wryly chronicles the struggle for control of the English diocese of Barchester. The evangelical but not particularly competent new bishop is Dr. Proudie, who with his awful wife and oily curate, Slope, maneuver for power. The Warden and Barchester Towers are part of Trollope's Barsetshire series, in which some of the same characters recur.