Barchester Towers
by Anthony Trollope
The Barchester Towers is the second of six Barsetshire Chronicles A work in which Trollope finally found his distinctive voice after a ten-year apprenticeship. In this most popular novel, he continues the story of chronicler Mr. Harding and his daughter Eleanor, which begins in The Warden, and adds to its cast characters who are Dr. Prudy's chicken and the greasy symbol of Mr. Sloup's "progress," inflated by the elegant and light Stanhope family. Love, mammon, clerical struggle and progress once again unfold in a distinct and hilarious place, all focusing on the beautifully imagined cathedral town of Barchester. The fundamental questions of this moral comedy are: Who will be the bishop? Who will be the Dean? Who will marry Eleanor? - Skillfully dealt with with the subtlety of ironic observation that gave Trollope such a large and grateful readership.
