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A Study Guide for Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers"
A Study Guide for Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers"
A Study Guide for Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers"
Ebook51 pages37 minutes

A Study Guide for Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers"

By Gale and Cengage

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A Study Guide for Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 27, 2016
ISBN9781535819145
A Study Guide for Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers"

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    A Study Guide for Anthony Trollope's "Barchester Towers" - Gale

    13

    Barchester Towers

    Anthony Trollope

    1857

    Introduction

    Barchester Towers, a comic novel written by British author Anthony Trollope, was first published in 1857. Set in the cathedral town (a town in which a church bishop is in residence) of Barchester in the fictional west England county of Barset, the novel is the second in a six-book series called the Chronicles of Barsetshire. These novels are interlinked, for characters that play a prominent role in one novel frequently appear in lesser roles in the others.

    Unlike the other novels in the series, Barchester Towers is a true sequel to the one that preceded it, The Warden, which introduces the reader to Barsetshire, telling the story of aging, beloved minister Septimus Harding. Reverend Harding is the warden, or overseer, of a retirement home but resigns his position after self-important reformers accuse him of earning too much for a job whose duties are light. His family's story continues in Barchester Towers, which begins with the death of the old bishop. The bishop's son (and Harding's son-in-law), Archdeacon Grantly, expects that he will be appointed to succeed his father, but his hopes are dashed when a new prime minister appoints Dr. Thomas Proudie.

    The meek and ineffectual Proudie, along with his domineering wife and the slippery chaplain, Obadiah Slope, represent the evangelical, low church faction of the Church of England. Pitted against them is the Grantly faction, who practice the more traditional, high church form of Anglicanism. The novel, one of Trollope's most popular, demonstrates his ability to recreate the social structures of the Victorian age and depict realistic, psychologically complex individuals as they navigate the ethical conflicts those social structures inevitably arouse.

    Barchester Towers is available in numerous editions, including one published by Knopf as part of the Everyman's Library series in 1992. Online, the book is available from Project Gutenberg at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3409.

    Author Biography

    Trollope was born on April 24, 1815, in London, England. His father, Thomas Trollope, was a barrister (lawyer). His mother, Frances Milton, was the daughter of a poor cleric. Trollope's father hoped his sons would be educated as gentlemen but lacked the necessary funds. While Anthony attended Harrow, a prestigious public school (what would be called a private school in the United States), he was a day student rather than a boarder.

    Being a day student carried a social stigma, and Trollope was awkward and poorly dressed in contrast to the more polished, aristocratic boys. He endured taunts from his schoolmates. Things were no better after he began attending another public school, Winchester, at age twelve. Compounding his unhappiness was the absence of his mother, who traveled to America. She intended to join a utopian community, but when that fell through, she opened a shop in Ohio and did not return to England until 1831.

    When Thomas Trollope's law practice failed, the family moved to a run-down farmhouse. Anthony returned to Harrow, but he had to walk twelve miles round-trip to attend. He later claimed that this long walk started him daydreaming, which served him well in writing. To save money, the family

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