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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We have a bit of a villain in another character we meet early on, Mr. Sowerby, but one of the things I admire about Trollope is that he never creates any character who is less than human, and so his heroes have clay feet and his villains are complex and three-dimensional. A visit to Victorian England & indulging myself with another re-read of the delightful Barchester Towers. Clerics die. Who will fill the vacant posts? A husband dies. Whom should the widow marry? A rector and his family return after twelve years abroad in Italy. What havoc is wrought by their return?

So, I am seriously at a loss to express just how much I enjoyed this book. I am beginning to have a serious "thing" for Mr. Trollope. Very gratifying and even touching themes of repentence, redemption, forgiveness, humility, pride, charity... Timothy West’s narration is superb, fantastic, sublime. I have listened to other audiobooks read by West, but this is his best. It cannot be improved upon. His intonations are marvelous. He captures, through the nflections of his voice, the characters’ personalities perfectly-–the meek, the obsequious, the brash, the kind and the generous. The narration is outstanding. If I mention how much I like one intonation, you’ll think this one is the best, but they are all very well performed. Five stars for the audiobook narration by Timothy West. I did decrease the speed to 90%.L'evoluzione delle vicende poggia comunque su una struttura molto solida e i mutamenti si succedono in modo realisticamente ponderato, senza quei colpi di scena 'gratuiti' e forzati che troviamo nei romanzetti prettamente commerciali.

The series has been subject to criticism regarding its plot development. The Saturday Review (1861) wrote that "[T]he plot of Framley Parsonage is really extremely poor", [30] going so far as to say "Mr Trollope is not naturally a good constructor of plots". [30] Similarly, critic Walter Allen claimed that Trollope has "little skill in plot construction", [35] while Stephen Wall suggested the outcome of The Small House at Allington "is visible early on". [36] Miss Monica Thorne, Wilfred's spinster sister of about sixty, who is an extreme traditionalist. She holds a garden party at their family residence, Ullathorne, for the notables of Barsetshire. Be that as it may, WOW. How can a book that actually seems fairly predictable still completely thrill the reader (and even get the reader to evince some stress about the outcome) when, like I said, you pretty much know what will happen in the end (just read the chapter headings!). The character's characters are completely fresh. At the outset one thinks some Victorian stereotypes will be had--NOT SO! I think every character surprised me. I so love Trollope's sense of humanity and that every person has many sides. Six lavish BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of Anthony Trollope's much-loved novels, plus a bonus documentary about Trollope himself.I am reading Trollope on a Delphi collection of his works, where lots of highlights and notes are located for all his books, I have read so far, if interested in getting a taste of his books, without any spoilers. Trollope starts slow, then goes slower and after a bit you wonder... where... exactly... is any of this... There are many parallel plots as well. We also follow the misunderstandings and miscommunications around our sharp-willed and headstrong heroine, Mrs. Bold. We also are acquainted with the family of Standhopes and Thornes. (The chapter introducing the Standhopes was very funny). While The Warden was intended as a one-off work, [3] Trollope returned to Barsetshire for the setting of its sequel Barchester Towers. [3] It was published in 1857, again by Longman, finding a similar level of success to its predecessor. [22] 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.