Barchester Towers
Anthony Trollope · 1815–1882 · England
Why it matters
A vacant bishopric sets off a comic war of ambition among clergy, wives, and hangers-on in a fictional cathedral town. Trollope's warm, exacting social comedy at its most purely enjoyable.
At a glance
satireromance
Difficulty 4/10medium pace500 pagesLeisurely Victorian sentences, but the comic plotting is easy to follow.
Deep dive
A cathedral town goes to war over who gets to run an almshouse, and Trollope makes clerical ambition funnier than any battlefield.
Where to go next
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