Barchester Towers

Trollope's comic masterpiece of plotting and backstabbing opens as the Bishop of Barchester lies on his deathbed. Soon a pitched battle breaks out over who will take power, involving, among others, the zealous reformer Dr Proudie, his fiendish wife and the unctuous schemer Obadiah Slope, the smooth Archdeacon Grantly and his father-in-law, the saintly Mr Harding. Barchester Towers is one of Trollope's best-loved novels and captures nineteenth-century provincial England with wit, worldly wisdom and an unparalleled gift for characterisation.