Barchester Towers

Start with Barchester Towers, generally reckoned to be the best, certainly the funniest * Guardian *It was in [Trollope’s] fifth book, Barchester Towers, in which he blended his satirical gifts with disdain for evangelical puritanism, that he found himself * Washington Post *His characters are real, truthfully felt and never patronised by their creator * Daily Mail *[The] Barsetshire novels firmly established clerical intrigue as an art form in the mid-nineteenth century * New York Times *Trollope is one of our greatest comic novelists, as well as having an extraordinary talent for taking you confidentially and irresistibly into the flow of his story * Sunday Times *

Anthony Trollope was born on 24 April 1815 and attended both Harrow and Winchester schools. His family were poor and eventually were forced to move to Belgium, where his father died. His mother, Frances Trollope, supported the family through writing. Trollope began a life-long career in the civil service with a position as a clerk in the General Post Office in London - he is also credited with later introducing the pillar box. He published his first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran in 1847, but his fourth novel, The Warden (1855) began the series of ‘Barsetshire’ novels for which he was to become best known. This series of five novels featuring interconnecting characters spanned twenty years of Trollope’s career as a novelist, as did the ‘Palliser’ series. He wrote over 47 novels in total, as well as short stories, biographies, travel books and his own autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1883. Trollope resigned from the Post Office in 1867 and stood for Parliament as a Liberal, though he was not elected. He died on 6 December 1882.

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