Narrator Timothy West has the technique, versatility, and sense of place to give a fine, idiomatic performance, but not quite the strength of personality to make us give a hoot about the characters and their concerns.”

"There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel."

― Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

"Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower."

― Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

"Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so. It is hardly too much to say that we all of us occasionally speak of our dearest friends in a manner in which those dearest friends would very little like to hear themselves mentioned, and that we nevertheless expect that our dearest friends shall invariably speak of us as though they were blind to all our faults, but keenly alive to every shade of our virtues."

― Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers

The second and best of the prolific author’s six novels about the fictional Barsetshire satirizes ecclesiastical politics in rural Victorian Britain. Among the many superbly drawn characters, the risibly overbearing Mrs. Proudie and the feckless Ethelbert Stanhope particularly shine. Some of us may even recognize the central conflict from our own experiences as congregants. Trollope once said, “In the writing of BARCHESTER TOWERS, I took great delight.” The listener gathers that, in the reading of it, Simon Vance also takes great delight. Obviously, he relishes impersonating the dramatis personae. One gets the impression that the more, the merrier, as far as he’s concerned. In addition, he delivers the fustian narrative with particular fluidity, verve, and grace. Y.R. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine