- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (24 Feb 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140620311
- ISBN-13: 978-0140620313
- Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 10.7 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,089,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Warden
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Product Description
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"Trollope will remain one of the most trustworthy . . . of the writers who have helped the heart of man to know itself." --Henry James
Product Description
1906. Prolific English writer of novels dealing with Victorian life. The Warden is the first of six novels in Trollope's Barsetshire series. They are set in Barsetshire, a fictional English county, and follow the Reverend Septimus Harding. In this book he works conscientiously as the warden for a charitable institution for retired men. After being accused of making undue profits, even for a sinecure, he resigns and his story is continued in the second novel, Barchester Towers. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
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First Sentence
The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of -; let us call it Barchester. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of -; let us call it Barchester. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Warden follows the story of Mr Harding, a cleric who is warden of Hiram's Hospital, a charitable home for twelve men who are no longer able to work. A local man, John Bold, is campaigning against corruption in the Church of England. He challenges the high income that the warden receives from the hospital (as a result of increased profits over the years from the estate which supports it, the hospital has more income than the gentleman who set up the charity ever envisaged). He feels more of the money should go to the twelve men themselves. Mr Harding is a good man caught up in a scandal not of his own making, and wrestles with his conscience, his loyalty to the church, and the defensive stance taken by the Archdeacon, his son-in-law.
The Warden is the first, and certainly not the best book in the Barchester Chronicles series, but it does display Trollope's easy to read style of narration, and the subtle humour that underlies it. The storyline is perhaps a bit slower than in the later books, and some of the interesting characters have yet to appear. The series is written in such a way that you could probably pick up any of the books and enjoy them as a single novel. Having said that, I think you would miss something special if you don't read the whole series. It is the characters that he creates in their own unique setting that makes Trollope's work worth reading, and to follow their development through each book makes the whole series far more satisfying than just one book.
The other books in the series are Barchester Towers, Dr Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington and the Last Chronicle of Barset.
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Although its principal character, Mr Harding, the Warden of Barchester, suffers abject misery and extreme anxiety during most of this novel, the reader of "The Warden" will enjoy one of the happiest, richest and warmest experiences to be gained from the whole of English Literature.
Untypically short, yet three years in the making, "The Warden" has a simple structure that Trollope utlized again and again. Take a moral dilemma of some sort, one that provides endless pros and cons to be argued, one that possibly takes many hundreds of pages to resolve, explore is social, political and financial implications, and show how it touches the lives of characters not too unlike ourselves.
The dilemma here concerns the income of Septimus Harding, the Warden of Barchester. Under the terms of a will, dated 1434, twelve superannuated woolcarders were to be accommodated in an almshouse, receiving one shilling and fourpence per day. A residence was to be provided for a warden who was to receive the income from the remainder of the testator's property. Now, more than 400 years later, there seems to be an imbalance in these depositions. The almshouse inmates continue to receive only one shilling and fourpence, while the warden, living on the proceeds of some valuable properties, receives eight hundred pounds annually and the use of the warden's house.
The dilemma faces a young Barchester surgeon, John Bold. If he allows the imbalance to continue, the wishes of the original benefactor, he believes, are being nullified. If he succeeds in having the warden's comfortable living discontinued, he will lose forever the possibility of making the warden's daughter his wife. And so the issue is taken up, argued and publicized.
As Anthony Trollope reveals in his autobiography, this tiny novel was successful enough (it earned him twenty pounds) to lead him to consider writing more of the same, and he soon began "Barchester Towers".
English actor Sir Nigel Hawthorne, brilliant as Archdeacon Grantly in a memorable TV adaptation of this novel, revisits Trollope's Barchester to provide a robust, opulent, complete and unabridged reading that no Trollope enthusiast should miss hearing.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
This is a really enjoyable read. Easy to read, lovely characterisations, sypathetic and open approach to every person. This is the second Anthony Trollope I have read, and I will definitely be reading more.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Introduction to the wonderful world of Barchester
It must be over 25 years since I read this title and it seems more enjoyable than ever. It should be compulsory reading for students of 19th century English history depicting, as... Read more
Published 8 days ago by stillarobin
Still a delight
I ordered this as it was free and I thought I would re-read and old classic. Still full of delightful details and descriptions as I remember...will now go for the rest.
Published 2 months ago by brightonrob
Couldn't engage with this
I really couldn't get to grips with this book at all to the extent that I didn't finish it. Perhaps it's not right to leave a review in that case but as the review stars simply... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ignite
Still waters still run deep
The first story in the "Chronicles of Barchester" is a slim novel with such an apparently slight plot that it may seem all too easy to slip into the category of "classics I never... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Antenna
Prepare to fall in love with Trollope
I must confess, I am a Trollope devotee and it was The Warden which started off my love affair with Trollope's literature. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Stracs
A gentle and entertaining read
The eponymous Warden is Mr Septimus Harding, who presides over the twelve bedesmen of Hiram's Hospital, a local almshouse. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Katie Stevens
Accurate, Human and Sympathetic
The Warden is Trollope's attempt on the same territory as Dickens' Bleak House - the Victorian civil legal system but whereas Dickens uses the everlasting cast of Jarndyce v... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Brownbear101
success story
I found this book easy to read, full of humour, and yet quite sad. Without giving away too much, it showed how little certain ' media ' structures in our lives had changed , and... Read more
Published on 15 Nov 2009 by Julia Gates
the warden
I was disappointed with the quality of this book... it had a large stain on the top corner... wont be using this bookseller again, was described as 'good quality' - definitely... Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2009 by Mrs. A. Walker
Wonderful, delightful and reassuring.
I am so glad I started reading Trollope, and that I first started with this little gem. I daresay (sic) that this book may as well have been written in Chinese, were it to be read... Read more
Published on 10 Oct 2009 by R. Faulkner
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