| Barchester Towers | |
| Author: | Anthony Trollope |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Chronicles of Barsetshire |
| Publisher: | Longmans |
| Release Date: | 1857 |
| Media Type: | |
| Isbn: | 978-1-59547745-3 |
| Preceded By: | The Warden |
| Followed By: | Doctor Thorne |
| Wikisource: | Barchester Towers |
Barchester Towers is a novel by English author Anthony Trollope published by Longmans in 1857. It is the second book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, preceded by The Warden and followed by Doctor Thorne. Among other things it satirises the antipathy in the Church of England between High Church and Evangelical adherents. Trollope began writing this book in 1855. He wrote constantly and made himself a writing-desk so he could continue writing while travelling by train. "Pray know that when a man begins writing a book he never gives over", he wrote in a letter during this period. "The evil with which he is beset is as inveterate as drinking – as exciting as gambling".
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". 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".[1]
Barchester Towers concerns the leading clergy of the fictional cathedral city of Barchester. The much loved bishop having died, all expectations are that his son, Archdeacon Grantly, will succeed him. Owing to the passage of the power of patronage to a new Prime Minister, a newcomer, the far more Evangelical Bishop Proudie, gains the see. His wife, Mrs Proudie, exercises an undue influence over the new bishop, making herself as well as the bishop unpopular with most of the clergy of the diocese. Her interference, leading the Bishop to veto the reappointment of the universally popular Mr Septimus Harding (protagonist of Trollope's earlier novel, The Warden) as warden of Hiram's Hospital, is not well received, even though she seeks to have the position given to a needy clergyman, Mr Quiverful, who has a wife and 14 children to support.
Even less popular than Mrs Proudie is the bishop's new chaplain, the hypocritical and sycophantic Mr Obadiah Slope, who decides it would be expedient to marry Harding's wealthy widowed daughter, Eleanor Bold. Slope hopes to win her favour by interfering in the controversy over the wardenship, in favour of Mr Harding. The Bishop, or rather Mr Slope under the direction of Mrs Proudie, also orders the return of the prebendary Dr Vesey Stanhope from Italy. Stanhope has been in Italy recovering from a sore throat for 12 years and has spent his time catching butterflies. With him to the Cathedral Close come his wife and their three adult children. The younger of Dr Stanhope's two daughters causes consternation in the Palace and threatens the plans of Mr Slope. Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni is a disabled flirt with a young daughter and a mysterious Italian husband, whom she has left. Mrs Proudie is appalled and considers her an unsafe influence on her daughters, servants and Mr Slope. Mr Slope is drawn like a moth to a flame, and cannot keep away from the Signora. Dr Stanhope's artistic son Bertie is skilled at spending money, but not at making it; his sisters think marriage to rich Eleanor Bold will help.
Summoned by Archdeacon Grantly to assist in the war against the Proudies and Mr Slope is the Reverend Francis Arabin. Mr Arabin is a considerable scholar, Fellow of Lazarus College at the University of Oxford, who nearly followed his mentor John Henry Newman into the Roman Catholic Church. A misunderstanding occurs between Eleanor and her father, brother-in-law, sister and Mr Arabin, who think that she intends to marry Mr Slope, much to their disgust. Mr Arabin is attracted to Eleanor, but the efforts of Grantly and his wife to stop her marrying Slope interfere with any relationship that might develop. At the Ullathorne garden party held by the Thornes, matters come to a head. Mr Slope proposes to Mrs Bold and is slapped for his presumption; Bertie goes through the motions of a proposal to Eleanor and is refused with good grace, and the Signora has a chat with Mr Arabin. Mr Slope's double-dealings are now revealed and he is dismissed by both Mrs Proudie and the Signora. The Signora drops a delicate word in several ears and with the removal of the misunderstanding, Mr Arabin and Eleanor become engaged.
The Dean of the Cathedral having died, Mr Slope campaigns to become the new Dean but Mr Harding is offered the preferment, with a beautiful house in the Close and fifteen acres of garden. Mr Harding considers himself unsuitable and with the help of the archdeacon, arranges that Mr Arabin be made Dean. With the Stanhopes' return to Italy, life in the Cathedral Close returns to normal and Mr Harding continues his life of gentleness and music.
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".
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.
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.[2]
The Warden and Barchester Towers were filmed by the BBC as The Barchester Chronicles in 1982. This starred Donald Pleasence as Septimus Harding, Geraldine McEwan as Mrs Proudie, and launched the career of Alan Rickman as Obadiah Slope.