Reading the Classics: The Warden, by Anthony Trollope
This is the first book in Anthony Trollope’s famous Barsetshire series, which inspired spinoffs by Angela Thirkell, and a ton of various filmic versions.
Nobody writes about Victorian life like Victorian writers.
This is not the best of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire novels. It is the first. It is also the shortest, but it tends to read long because it’s basically a short story’s worth of material spun out to nearly 200 pages.
In 1434 a wealthy merchant John Hiram died, and left in his will land to support twelve retired old men from Barchester. A hospital (nursing home) was to be built, the church to administer it by appointing a warden. However, times have changed. Land is worth more, and so Mr. John Bold, an earnest young progressive, is giving the fisheye to unworldly, gentle warden, Mr. Harding. Because there must be a romance, Mr. Bold is in love with Eleanor Harding, the warden’s virtuous daughter. But she will not marry him if he persists in trying to prove that her father is no better than a thief. Abashed, Mr. Bold is willing to back off — but once the warden has become aware of the fact that the world might think him dishonest, he must fix things.
The book gets into church politics, which was a subject of interest to mainstream Victorians. Though the plot is slight, the characters are delightful, from the good warden, who when earnestly making a heart-rending speech unconsciously works his hands as if he is playing his cello. We first meet the wonderfully self-involved Grantly family here.
We also get a discussion of the power of the press, and there is a chapter wherein thinly disguised Charles Dickens is faced off with Thomas Carlyle. Along with the power of the press comes the power of popularity — all subjects that are relevant today, even if the ins and outs of church history and jurisprudence aren’t.
I don’t recommend anyone begin reading Trollope with this book. But if you like him, you should enjoy the characters and the little side trips.