The Warden

Anthony Trollope, 1855

Victorian novels

A gentle clergyman's comfortable position becomes the subject of a dispute over charitable income.

Read the book Contents

Length: 21 chapters
Reading time: About 5 hr 1 min
Words: 71,590

About the book

Septimus Harding lives in Barchester, where his church duties include the wardenship of an old charitable institution. Questions about the income attached to that position begin to connect his quiet household with public arguments about the proper use of inherited wealth.

Trollope approaches the dispute through people whose motives need not be wholly good or wholly bad. Institutional arrangements become personal when principle, affection and reputation pull in different directions. The novel's modest setting allows close attention to the discomfort of being asked to defend an advantage one has long taken for granted.

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Victorian novels

This edition

Text from Standard Ebooks, who proofread and typeset it and dedicate their edition to the public domain. Anthony Trollope died more than 70 years ago, so the work is out of copyright in the UK.