Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers is one of the most beloved novels in all of English literature, the second novel (The Warden is the first) in the cycle of six forming Chronicles of Barsetshire.
We
are in Barchester, modeled on Westminster, a small city southwest of
London that, at the time of the novel's publication in 1857, was a two
hour train ride from London. It's war! A new bishop and bishop's
chaplain of the Church of England have arrived in Barchester and
immediately proclaim doctrines completely contrary to the longstanding
traditions and practices of the churchmen of this fair city.
With
this exquisitely crafted work, Anthony Trollope has created some of the
most memorable characters in literature. Certainly, we have an engaging
plot and subplots but what keeps many readers (for sure, this reader)
eager to find out what happens next and next and next is an interest in
the women and men gracing the novel's pages. For me, this was
particularly true of four individuals I'll never forget. Here they are:
Mrs.
Proudie, the bishop's wife - “This lady is habitually authoritative to
all, but to her poor husband she is despotic. Successful as has been his
career in the eyes of the world, it would seem that in the eyes of his
wife he is never right. All hope of defending himself has long passed
from him; indeed he rarely even attempts self-justification, and is
aware that submission produces the nearest approach to peace which his
own house can ever attain.” My dear Mrs. Proudie, do you take pride in
being a domineering, autocratic, overbearing, imperious wife and
lawgiver? The good lady's answer: absolutely!
Mr. Obadiah Slope,
the bishop's chaplain - “Of the Rev. Mr. Slope's parentage I am not
able to say much. I have heard it asserted that he is lineally descended
from that eminent physician who assisted at the birth of Mr. T. Shandy,
and that in early years he added an "e" to his name, for the sake of
euphony, as other great men have done before him.” Gotta love Anthony
Trollope's reference to Tristram Shandy. Every single scene featuring
Mr. Slope is a dark, lustrous gem since he's a man that could be
characterized as the perfect cross between Iago and fire-breathing
preacher Jonathan Edwards with Richard III's thirst for power added as
icing on the diabolical cake.
Among Anthony Trollop's
extraordinary gifts as a novelist is a genius for quick character
sketches. “Mr. Slope is tall, and not ill-made. His feet and hands are
large, as has ever been the case with all his family, but he has a broad
chest and wide shoulders to carry off these excrescences, and on the
whole his figure is good. His countenance, however, is not specially
prepossessing. His hair is lank and of a dull pale reddish hue. It is
always formed into three straight, lumpy masses, each brushed with
admirable precision and cemented with much grease; two of them adhere
closely to the sides of his face, and the other lies at right angles
above them. He wears no whiskers, and is always punctiliously shaven.
His face is nearly of the same colour as his hair, though perhaps a
little redder: it is not unlike beef—beef, however, one would say, of a
bad quality. His forehead is capacious and high, but square and heavy
and unpleasantly shining. His mouth is large, though his lips are thin
and bloodless; and his big, prominent, pale-brown eyes inspire anything
but confidence. His nose, however, is his redeeming feature: it is
pronounced, straight and well-formed; though I myself should have liked
it better did it not possess a somewhat spongy, porous appearance, as
though it had been cleverly formed out of a red-coloured cork.”
The
novelist narrator doesn't hold back when he adds: “I never could endure
to shake hands with Mr. Slope. A cold, clammy perspiration always
exudes from him, the small drops are ever to be seen standing on his
brow, and his friendly grasp is unpleasant.”
Signora Madeline
Vesey Neroni née Madeline Stanhope, daughter of a cleric returned from
Italy to Barchester with his family - “Madame Neroni, though forced to
give up all motion in the world, had no intention whatever of giving up
the world itself. The beauty of her face was uninjured, and that beauty
was of a peculiar kind. Her copious rich brown hair was worn in Grecian
bandeaux round her head, displaying as much as possible of her forehead
and cheeks. Her forehead, though rather low, was very beautiful from its
perfect contour and pearly whiteness. Her eyes were long and large, and
marvelously bright; might I venture to say bright as Lucifer's...”
Anthony Trollope both describes and examines the various ways the
Signora, sitting up on her coach, traps men as if a spider trapping
flies in her web. Satire so stinging, as a man reading the novel, I
almost had to hold the book at a distance from my eyes so as to avoid
the Signora trapping me as well.
“Bertie” Stanhope, younger
brother of Madeline - “His great fault was an entire absence of that
principle which should have induced him, as the son of a man without
fortune, to earn his own bread. Many attempts had been made to get him
to do so, but these had all been frustrated, not so much by idleness on
his part as by a disinclination to exert himself in any way not to his
taste.” Oh, may Anthony Trollope be praised! Having a Oscar Wilde-style
dandy allergic to work in the midst of this bunch of stiff, uptight,
church-oriented Barchester men and women adds so much color and flair.
Go get 'em, Bertie!
Lastly, I'd like to point out a feature I
found delightful: at points throughout the novel, Anthony
Trollope as author steps back from his unfolding story to speak directly
to me, the reader. For instance: "These leave-takings in novels are as
disagreeable as they are in real life; not so sad, indeed, for they want
the reality of sadness; but quite as perplexing, and generally less
satisfactory. What novelist, what Fielding, what Scott, what George
Sand, or Sue, or Dumas, can impart an interest to the last chapter of
his fictitious history?"
If there is only one Victorian English novel you read in your lifetime, you will not do better than Barchester Towers. 
British author Anthony Trollope, 1815-1882
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