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The Warden (Wordsworth Classics)
by: Anthony Trollope |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 741 EAN: 9781853260872 ISBN: 1853260878 Label: Wordsworth Editions Ltd Manufacturer: Wordsworth Editions Ltd Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 264 Publication Date: 1994-12 Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd Studio: Wordsworth Editions Ltd |
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| Customer Reviews | ||
  - Barset at the beginningSeptimus Harding, a clergyman, lives at Barchester. His daughter Susan has married the son of the bishop, an archdecon, Theophilus Grantly. Harding is made precentor of the cathedral. He is also warden of the almshouse. The retreat is called Hiram's Hospital after the benefactor. There are twelve old men. The men sign a petition claiming they are not receiving what they are entitled to under Hiram's estate. John Bold is chided by his sister Mary because he loves Eleanor Harding, Susan's younger sister, but is willing to stir up a protest to the detriment of Mr. Harding's position. When John Bold does not appear at a party, Mr. Harding is faced with having to tell Eleanor about the petition that John Bold has encouraged the twelve old men to sign. Dr. Grantly, the archdeacon, seeks to support his father-in-law in the matter. Next, legal opinion is received that the case as it stands presently will probably be nonsuited. In the meantime the warden has come to believe that the absence of work for holding the postion of warden has brought him the tribulations. Eleanor urges Mr. Harding to give up the position, which is his desire. She says that she is able to be happy with much less. John Bold is persuaded by Eleanor to abandon the cause. Trollope, a contemporary of Dickens, gives the book many Dickens-like touches, sanctum sanctorum being just one example. Bold attempts but fails to stop the stories in the JUPITER. Press accounts have been particularly damaging to Mr. Harding's psyche. This is a gripping tale of conscience versus preferment. The politics of the matter are intriguing. Rating: - A Necessary StartThe series of twelve novels that Anthony Trollope wrote about the fictional county of Barchester, England and its inhabitants (I'm including the Palliser books in that calculation) are among the greatest, most entertaining achievements of English literature. And here's where it all begins: "The Warden," a short, sweet tale of a clergyman's burgeoning social conscience, and the uproar that causes in a small, rural community. Perhaps this makes "The Warden" sound more dry than it is; it's actually an amusing, warm-hearted read. Be forewarned that it's not Trollope's best (he's still feeling his way both as a writer and a social critic) , but it's the novel that brought him to public attention, and it's essential reading for those starting the series. In particular, it sets up conflicts and personal dynamics that are key to the novel's immediate successor, the brilliant and hilarious "Barchester Towers." Were "The Warden" to exist on its own, it could be dismissed as a slight, second-rate work; as a prelude to what follows, it's important and indispensable. Rating: - Oh what a tangled web they weaveLike his contemporary, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope endured poverty as a child. Dickens found his zeal for social reform in his personal wounds; Trollope, who was spared the debtor's prison but knew well the role of social outcast, goes for the case of the individual in "The Warden," one of his early and most topical novels in a prolific career. The ingrown aristocratic politics of the Church of England and calls for reform in the mid-19th century brew the action of "The Warden," a satire that is often very funny, and which makes high use of the conventions of English comic literature, including mock classical style, Jane Austen's parties and courtships, the country soul adrift in the city and irony seeping everywhere. The text of the novel and the critical notes in the Penguin edition will explain the complexities of the church's hierarchy and subdivisions. Let it suffice to say that the clergyman of the title, Septimus Harding, has a plum of a job ministering to the inhabitants of a home for aged working class men. He is very happy and devoted to his work, as he is to playing his cello. He does not want much, but he happens to hold down a high income he never asked for, that the archdeacon, his son-in-law and son of the bishop, creatively cut out of an endowment that was supposed to have gone to the hospital's patients. When the hospital's young doctor learns about the money withheld from the old men, he goes to a prosecutor and the press. The archdeacon and a high-priced legal team swing back with a "might is right" offense and the battle lines are drawn. It does not take long for everything to grow very messy and the original issue to get lost in ambitions. This is a highly satisfying book that reads swiftly. Gilmour's critical introduction like most critical introductions contains spoilers so it is best read as an afterward. It does a good job of putting Trollope and his story in historical context. What it does not do is discuss the artistic achievement of the novel, which deploys voice, perspective, symbolism, character, timing and literary devices to great effect. There is a priceless satiric riff on both Carlyle and Dickens. Rating: - The Warden: The First Chronicle of Barset is the shortest and one of the best in the seriesAnthony Trollope (1815-1882) was an English chap working as a postal inspector in Ireland when he wrote this novel in 1855. It was the first of the Barsetshire novels dealing with life amid the rural clergy in a mythical town in the west of England. The novels are: "The Warden"; "Barsetshire Towers"; "Dr Thorne" "The Small House at Alliington" and the longest and best of the series: "The Last Chronicle of Barset." Completing this series the affable and industrious Trollope went on to the Palliser politcal series and countless other works. In all he wrote 47 novels and short stories. While not on the creative level of a Dickens or the Brontes he is, nevertheless, a great novelist who deserves to be more widely read and studied in our English courses in university. The Warden tells the story of old Septimus Harding who is the warden of a small almshouse for retired workers. There are 12 of the old men who live here. Harding receives a salary of 800 pounds; serves as precenter in the Barsetshire Cathedral and enjoys his violincello, reading, gardening and sharing life with his unmarried daughter Eleanor. His oldest daughter Susan is wed to the proud conservative Dr. Grantley who is the son of the senior citizen Bishop. All is well is this Eden world until a young Doctor John Bold causes a ruckus! Bold proclaims in the newspapers that Harding is being paid too much and his job is a sincecure while the old men of the almshouse deserve a higher yearly stipend. The novel was written during a time of church reform in the Church of England. The book was inspired by disputes about church governance throughout the land. Bold is also in love with Eleanor Harding. All ends fairly well as Mr. Harding resigns. He is a man of high Christian values and his conscience is the monitor of his action. He resigns even though Bold had withdrawn his attack in an effort to win Eleanor as his bride. The two marry. Harding is given a smaller residence but retains the esteem of the church powers. The series is well launched. The Warden is the first of the series and will best be enjoyed if it is read prior to Barchester Towers and the other fine books in the series. Trollpe was better than Jan Karon and is well worth spending time with. His books can be slow but he knew human nature and the Victorian society of which he knew so much about. Rating: - A prescient Victorian novelAnthony Trollope's novel _The Warden_, though one-hundred and fifty years old this year, is just as readable and just a politically relevent today as it was in Victorian England. Mr. Trolllope offers a wonderful perspective on the fallout that occurs in highly polarized political settings - in this case Victorian England. Septimus Harding is a middle-aged Anglican cleric who earns 800 pounds a year looking after and caring for the residents of an almshouse. His patients are elderly and disabled peasants; the almshouse the result of the will of one John Hiram, four-hundred years dead, who declared that his land in Barsetshire, the couny where the novel is set, should be rented out and the revenue used to fund a hospital for ailing tradesmen, and that each tradesman should receive a small allowance. Four hundred years later, the value, and the rents on the land have increased four fold, and along with the increase in revenue, the salaries of the warden, who looks after the patients, and the steward, who cares for the buildings, have increased, but the allowances for the patients have not. Mr. Harding has a young friend, Mr. Bold, a man so bent on reform that he would reform his own household, given the chance, even if nothing were wrong with it. Mr. Bold gets his hands on old Hiram's will,a dn here the action begins. Mr. Bold and his attorney come to the conclusion that the Barchester cathedral, the executer of Hiram's will, has not been following the will properly, by not increasing the allowances of the patients of the hospital, and over-inflating the salaries of the warden and the steward. He brings a law-suit against the warden and the steward. But there are other problems brewing in Barchester. Dr. Grantly, the archdeacon of the church and Mr. HArdings son in law, is a staunch defender of the rights of sthe Church of England to conduct business as it sees fit, and therefore stands in direct opposition to the reforms of Mr. Bold. Mr. Bold is in love with Mr.Harding's unmarried daughter, Eleanor, and this brings him trouble when he files a lawsuit against her father. And Mr. Harding is beginning to doubt whether or not he deserves his salary, which is worrying to both Mr. Bold, because with out Mr. Harding he has no case against the church, and Dr. Grantly, who sees Mr. Harding's questioning of the validiity of his salary as threatening to the church. Spetimus Harding is a truly honest, valiant man in the middle of a war of ideology. Add that to Trollope's scathing reviews of the press (and a writer he calls Mr. Popular Sentiment, a satirization of Charles Dickens) and you have a tale that is just as relevent in America in 2005 as it was in England in 1855. |
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