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Audiobook edition · 8 h 10 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the law protects your comfortable life, but your conscience will not let you enjoy it?
In Anthony Trollope’s The Warden, Septimus Harding wants peace. A gentle clergyman and cellist, he lives comfortably on the income of Hiram’s Hospital, an almshouse in the cathedral town of Barchester. Then John Bold, a young surgeon eager for reform, questions how the charity’s money is used. Harding must face a painful doubt: is he entitled to what he receives?
Archdeacon Grantly urges his father-in-law to defend his rights. Harding’s daughter Eleanor loves her father but is drawn to Bold, the man challenging him. As a London newspaper turns the dispute into a public quarrel, private loyalties come under pressure. Trollope brings gentle humor to a conflict with no simple villain, where good intentions offer little protection against hurt.
What you’ll discover
- A conscience under pressure Follow a gentle man as legal rights and inward doubts pull him apart.
- Reform with a human cost Meet John Bold, whose honest campaign puts people he cares about under strain.
- Loyalty pulled two ways See Eleanor balance love for her father with her feelings for his challenger.
- The force of public opinion Watch a newspaper carry a local dispute far beyond the quiet cathedral close.
- Humor without easy villains Enjoy Trollope’s teasing eye for church defenders, reformers, and people certain they are right.
Who will love it
For readers who love character, gentle humor and moral puzzles, and anyone who enjoys Victorian life seen from inside a cathedral close.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A kind man holds a comfortable post
- A young reformer asks an awkward question
- The Archdeacon pushes and Harding wavers
- The press turns a private man into a public target
- Eleanor, Bold and the bedesmen pull at one man
- What the book says and how it says it
Who’s who
- Septimus HardingThe gentle warden of Hiram's Hospital and precentor of Barchester, a cellist who wants peace and cannot bear to be thought dishonest.
- Eleanor HardingHis younger daughter, sensible and loyal, who loves her father and finds herself drawn to the very man who attacks him.
- Archdeacon Theophilus GrantlyHarding's son-in-law, a forceful churchman who defends every right of the Church and wants his father-in-law to stand firm.
- John BoldA young surgeon and reformer who questions how the hospital's money is used and also hopes to marry Eleanor.
- Mr BunceThe most senior bedesman, steady and loyal, who respects the warden and wants the old men to keep their peace.
- Tom TowersA writer for the London newspaper the Jupiter, who shapes public opinion about the case without ever visiting Barchester.
- Sir Abraham HaphazardThe Attorney General, a smooth and skilled lawyer whom Harding consults and who promises that the law will protect him.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 9 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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The Warden
by Anthony Trollope · 1855
A reformer questions Septimus Harding's charity income, setting his comfortable life against his conscience.
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In short
The Warden is a short novel by Anthony Trollope, published in 1855. It is the first of six books set in and around Barchester, an imagined English cathedral town in the west of England.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A kind man holds a comfortable post
The story opens in Barchester, where Septimus Harding is precentor of the cathedral and also warden of Hiram's Hospital. The hospital is an almshouse, founded under the will of a wool merchant named John Hiram. It houses twelve old men, called bedesmen, who are poor and past work. The warden looks after them, and in return he receives a good house, a garden and an income of about eight hundred pounds a year.
Harding is in his sixties and a widower. He is mild, shy and generous, and he loves music. His great pleasure is the cello, and when he is troubled he plays an imaginary one in the air, moving his fingers and bow without a sound. He knows the bedesmen by name and looks after them kindly. He has never thought of the post as anything but an honest gift from his friend the Bishop.
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What is The Warden by Anthony Trollope about?
It is about Septimus Harding, a kind clergyman who runs an almshouse in Barchester and lives well from its income. When a reformer challenges the arrangement, Harding must decide what his conscience requires.
Is The Warden a true story?
No. Barchester and its people are invented, and Trollope published the novel in 1855. It does draw on real debates of the time about church charities and their funds, and on real newspapers and writers.
Who is Mr Sentiment in The Warden?
Mr Sentiment, also called Popular Sentiment in some passages, is Trollope's gentle parody of Charles Dickens. He writes a sentimental novel about almshouses that paints clergymen as greedy and the poor as saints.
The author
Anthony Trollope
1815–1882 · English Victorian novelist
Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) was an English novelist. He was born in London, lived in Ireland for many years, and later returned to England. He worked for the Post Office while writing novels. His books include The Warden (1855), Barchester Towers (1857), and Doctor Thorne (1858). He died in London.
More by Anthony Trollope
All 6 booksMore like this
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