The Barsetshire Chronicles - All 6 Books in One Edition: The Warden, Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington & The Last Chronicle of Barset

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He ventures to reprobate that system which goes so far to violate all proper confidence between the author and his readers, by maintaining nearly to the end of the third volume a mystery as to the fate of their favourite personage. Nay, more, and worse than this is too frequently done. Have not often the profoundest efforts of genius been used to baffle the aspirations of the reader, to raise false hopes and false fears, and to give rise to expectations which are never to be realized? Are not promises all but made of delightful horrors, in lieu of which the writer produces nothing but most commonplace realities in his final chapter? And is there not a species of deceit in this to which the honesty of the present age should lend no countenance? The Chronicles of Barsetshire series is a series of fiction novels written by the popular English novelist Anthony Trollope. This series is set in a fictitious county in England called as Barsetsire and the cathedral town called as Barchester. There is a total of 6 books in the series which were published between the years 1855 and 1867. All the novels in this series deal with the dealings of the gentry and the clergy, as well as the amatory, social, and political manoeuvrings that take place between and among them. Out of all the six books, the second one is very well known and is titled as ‘Barchester Towers’. The last book of the series is author Trollope’s personal favorite. Overall, the series is considered by many people as the finest work of author Trollope. Both the fictitious locations of Barchester cathedral town and the Barsetshire county are located somewhere in the West Country, as described by the author. In the some parts of the series, it is shown that the stories have connections with the other series written by author Anthony Trollope, which is known as the Palliser series. In some places, the series is also known by the name ‘Barchester Chronicles’. Author Trollope began writing the Chronicles of Barsetshire series in the year 1855 and published the debut book of the series at the end of the same year. Author Trollope says that even though the stories described in the novels of the series follow each other and refer to events from previous titles on many occasions, they can be read individually as each one of them is complete in itself. The novels are regarded as the classics of the Victorian literature. BARCHESTER CHRONICLES by Anthony Trollope Read by a Full Cast | Audiobook Review". AudioFile Magazine . Retrieved 31 October 2020. The Chronicles of Barsetshire were also commended by other authors. Margaret Oliphant called the series "the most perfect art […] a kind of inspiration", [3] while Virginia Woolf wrote: "We believe in Barchester as we believe in the reality of our own weekly bills". [25] Criticism [ edit ]

In his autobiography, Trollope observed "In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight. The bishop and Mrs. Proudie were very real to me, as were also the troubles of the archdeacon and the loves of Mr. Slope". When he submitted his finished work, his publisher, William Longman, initially turned it down, finding much of it to be full of "vulgarity and exaggeration". [1] Recent critics offer a more positive opinion: "Barchester Towers is many readers' favourite Trollope", wrote The Guardian, which included it in its 2009 list of "1000 novels everyone must read". [2] Plot summary [ edit ] I like this for its humor, its characterizations and its accurate depiction of mid-Victorian provincial life. Trollope knew how to write a story, and I think this is his best series. This is a work of satire. It pokes a finger at the press. It draws attention to church infighting and squabbling for the attainment of position and prestige rather than Christian beliefs. Human relationships, between friends, between enemies, between siblings and between husbands and wives, are presented in such a manner as to make readers nod in recognition, smile and laugh. There are representatives of the high church in the Grantly faction, Tory by political leaning, and the newly established Proudie faction, Whigs, unfortunately, represented by not only the spineless Bishop Proudie and his oppressive wife, but also by our most obvious villain, Obadiah Slope (his name makes you cringe, does it not?). Trollope is a master of description and I had no difficulty in reading Mr. Slope’s character in his demeanor. Mrs Proudie, a proud, vulgar, domineering wife, who promotes evangelical causes such as Sunday schools and is zealous in eliminating high-church rituals.a b c Turner, Mark W. (23 December 2010), "Trollope's Literary Life and Times", The Cambridge Companion to Anthony Trollope, Cambridge University Press, pp.6–16, doi: 10.1017/ccol9780521886369.002, ISBN 978-0-521-88636-9 , retrieved 31 October 2020 a b c Wright, Andrew (1983). Anthony Trollope Dream and Art. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-06626-1. ISBN 978-1-349-06628-5. It often is so felt; but we are inclined to say that it never produces half the discomfort or half the feeling of implied inferiority that is shown by a great man who desires his visitor to be seated while he himself speaks from his legs. What I enjoy most of all though is Trollope's observation of behaviour and his psychology is spot on. Take for example the following passage, in connection with the very late arrival of an important guest at the home of the Thornes:

I personaggi sono accuratamente delineati, ognuno ben situato nella propria categoria sociale. A primeggiare per caratteri positivi sono le figure femminili (non tutte, ovviamente).

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Sutherland points out that in the early chapters Trollope describes the Proudies as intending to spend as much time as possible in London, leaving the field clear for Slope to act on his own in Barchester with the action easily contained in a single-volume novel: in Chapter IV, Slope thinks to himself that, in the Proudies' anticipated absences in London, "he, therefore, he, Mr Slope, would in effect be bishop of Barchester". But when Trollope resumed the composition of Barchester Towers in May 1856, planning the eventual three-volume novel as a result of the unexpectedly increasing sales of The Warden in late 1855, he expanded the text by keeping the Proudies in Barchester and introducing a number of new characters who had not appeared in the earlier chapters - the Stanhopes, Mr Arabin, and the Thornes among others. For those of you with ereaders, Project Gutenberg has several formats (almost certainly without notes). Librivox has a free audio version read by a number of readers. Trollope's own sense of humor is a joy, bubbling along underneath like a quiet teakettle, occasionally bursting out with a whistle of steam. He speaks to his reader directly in little chatty asides (which apparently greatly annoyed Henry James--well, good, anything that annoyed Henry James is fine by me), commenting on his characters as though he knew them personally. Which he obviously does.

The literary scholar John Sutherland observes that Trollope suspended work on the novel (having reached the end of Chapter VIII) between February 1855 and May 1856, turning instead to his posthumously published The New Zealander. During this time he changed his idea of writing a short novel (similar in length to The Warden) to a longer one, and that from this hiatus there arise a number of inconsistencies in the text. In the first chapter Trollope says that Bishop Grantley is dying in "the latter days of July" and that Proudie became bishop "just a month after his [Grantly's] demise". At the beginning of Chapter IX, Sutherland observes that Trollope has Proudie three months onto his term as Bishop - effectively late November. However at the beginning of Chapter XII Slope is writing a letter dated 20 August, and in Chapters XXXIII and XXXV it is made clear that Miss Thorne's fête champêtre takes place on the last day of September. In Chapter XLVIII Arabin proposes to Eleanor on "a beautiful afternoon in the beginning of October". I have just finished the second (and probably best known) of the Chronicles of Barsetshire, and I enjoyed myself very much indeed. I love Trollope's observations of the foibles of his characters and while some verge on caricature, most have strengths and weaknesses, as do we all. There is great fun in loathing the villain, Obadiah Slope - and how could he not be villainous with such a name! but the author himself who keeps breaking the fourth wall and chatting casually to the reader, as they used to in those days. Trollope cheerfully points out all this is fiction, he gives spoilers for his own novel because he doesn’t think there should be “secrets” between author and reader, and at one point he says well, this minor character has a very interesting story but I couldn’t include it because Mr Longman wouldn’t let me write a fourth volume! In 1993, The Small House at Allington was released as a dramatised radio programme on BBC Radio 4. [45] It was created by Martin Wade and directed by Cherry Cookson. [45] Each character was played by a voice actor, with the story being accompanied by music and sound effects. [46] Following its success, the other five novels were also adapted to this form and released between December 1995 and March 1998 as The Chronicles of Barset. [45]

This was lovely. Barchester Towers in probably Trollope's best known and most popular work. It could stand alone, but really should be read after Warden as book 2 in the Barsetshire Series (six books). Trollope's prose is beautiful but his characters (good and bad; pretty and plain) are sketched with such nuance and understanding that two books in I feel like many of them are family.

Date le condizioni specifiche del clero anglicano, vengono messe in luce le connivenze fra 'carrierismo ecclesiastico' e potere politico. And although Sutherland notes that Trollope was "often indifferent to minor inconsistencies in his narratives", he regards these lapses as showing the point at which Trollope conceived the idea of the novel series which would eventually become the hugely successful Chronicles of Barsetshire. [3] Characters [ edit ] High Church faction [ edit ]Knowles, Elisabeth (2006). The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Barchester). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191727047. This is the second volume in the Barsetshire Chronicles by Anthony Trollope. As compared to the first book, this is more humorous, more satirical and more people centric. Some lines were very funny. Trollope is a keen observer of the absurdities and little foibles of human nature. There is an inherent simplicity in this writing that gives the books a more comforting and a “friendly” feeling. There are again some topics related to Church politics that I would have been clueless against had it not been for the helpful endnotes. Bowen, Sara (2017). "Angela Thirkell and "Miss Austen" ". The Jane Austen Journal. 39: 112–125 – via Gale Academic Onefile. Trollope σε συντροφεύει σαν Συν-αναγνώστης όπου ανακαλύπτει και αυτός μαζί σου για πρώτη φορά το βιβλίο. Πολλές φορές, σχολιάζοντας τις πράξεις των ηρώων του σαν να σχολιάζει ένα άρθρο εφημερίδας, έκοβε τον δεσμό που έχει κάθε συγγραφέας με τους ήρωες του. Χαιρόταν με τις θετικές εξελίξεις και εκνευριζόταν με την συμπεριφορά ορισμένων ηρώων. Με αυτόν τον τρόπο έδινε την ψευδαίσθηση ότι δεν γνωρίζει τους ήρωες του και ότι τους ανακαλύπτει παρέα με τον αναγνώστη προσδίδοντάς τους μια αυθεντικότητα και αληθοφάνεια.