Barchester Towers

by Anthony Trollope

Overview

With an essay by John Kenneth Galbraith.

'What! to come here a stranger, a young, unknown, and unfriended stranger, and tell us, in the name of the bishop his master, that we are ignorant of our duties, old-fashioned, and useless!'

Trollope's comic masterpiece of plotting and backstabbing opens as the Bishop of Barchester lies on his deathbed. Soon a pitched battle breaks out over who will take power, involving, among others, the zealous reformer Dr Proudie, his fiendish wife and the unctuous schemer Obadiah Slope.

Barchester Towers is one of the best-loved novels in Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series, which captured nineteenth-century provincial England with wit, worldly wisdom and an unparalleled gift for characterization.

The second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire.

The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141974286
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	05/31/2012
Series:	The Penguin English Library
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	608
File size:	964 KB
Age Range:	3 Months

About the Author

Anthony Trollope (1815-82) was one of the most widely enjoyed and prolific novelists of the nineteenth century. His books include the great Chronicles of Barsetshire, of which Barchester Towers is the second volume. Trollope worked for the Post Office for much of his adult life, combining postal and literary business as he travelled around the British Empire. He has been credited with the creation of the distinctive British pillar box.

The other five titles in the Chronicles of Barsetshire are The Warden, Dr Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicle of Barset, all of which are published in the Penguin English Library.

Table of Contents

I. Who Will Be the New Bishop?
II. Hiram's Hospital, According to an Act of Parliament
III. Dr. and Mrs. Proudie
IV. The Bishop's Chaplain
V. A Morning Visit
VI. War
VII. The Dean and Chapter Take Counsel
VIII. The Ex-Warden Rejoices in His Probable Return to the Hospital
IX. The Stanhope Family
X. Mrs. Proudie's Reception—Commences
XII. Slope versus Harding
XIII. The Rubbish Cart
XIV. The New Champion
XV. The Widow's Suitors
XVI. Baby Worship
XVII. Who Shall be Cock of the Walk?
XVIII. The Widow's Persecution
XIX. Barchester by Moonlight
XX. Mr. Arabin
XXI. St. Ewold's Parsonage
XXII. The Thorns of Ullathorne
XXIII. Mr. Asrabinn Reads Himself in at St. Ewold's
XXIV. Mr. Slopes Manages Very Cleverly at Puddingdale
XXV. Fourteen Arguments in Favour of Mr. Quiverful's Claims
XXVI. Mrs. Proudie Wrestles and Gets a Fall
XXVII. A Love Scene
XXVIII. Mrs. Bold is Entertained by Dr. and Mrs. Grantly at Plumstead
XXIX. A Serious Interview
XXX. Another Love Scene
XXXI. The Bishop's Library
XXII. A New Candidate for Ecclesiastical Honours
XXXIII. Mrs. Proudie Victrix
XXXIV. Oxford—The Master and the Tutor of Lazarus
XXXV. Miss Thorne's Fete Champerte
XXXVI. Ullathorne Sports—Act I
XXXVII. The Countess De Courcy, Mrs. Proudie, and the Signora Neroni Meet Each Other at Ullathorne
XXXVIII. The Bishop Sits Down to Breakfast, and the Dean Dies
XXXIX The Lookalofts and the Greenacres
XL. Ullathorne Sports—Act II
XLII. Ullathorne Sports—Act III
XLIII. Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful are Made Happy. Mr. Slope is Encouraged by the Press
XLIV. Mrs. Bold at Home
XLV. The Stanhopes at Home
XLVI. Mr. Slope's Parting Interview with the Signora
XLVII The Dean Elect
XLVIII Miss Thorne Shows her Talent at Match-making
XLIX. The Beelzebub Colt
L. The Archdeacon is Satisfied with the State of Affairs
LI. Mr. Slope Bids Farewell to the Palace and its Inhabitants
LII. The New Dean Takes Possession of the Deanery, and the New Warden of the Hospital
LIII. Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

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.”

AudioFile

"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

From the Publisher

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

FEB/MAR 07 - AudioFile