Anthony Trollope: The Barsetshire Chronicles - All 6 Books in One Edition

Chapter XVIII. The Bishop of Barchester is Crushed

Chapter XIX. Where Did it Come from?

Chapter XX. What Mr Walker Thought About it

Chapter XXI. Mr Robarts on His Embassy

Chapter XXII. Major Grantly at Home

Chapter XXIII. Miss Lily Dale’s Resolution

Chapter XXIV. Mrs Dobbs Broughton’s Dinner-Party

Chapter XXV. Miss Madeline Demolines

Chapter XXVI. The Picture

Chapter XXVII. A Hero at Home

Chapter XXVII. Showing How Major Grantly Took a Walk

Chapter XXIX. Miss Lily Dale’s Logic

Chapter XXX. Showing what Major Grantly Did After His Walk

Chapter XXXI. Showing How Major Grantly Returned to Guestwick

Chapter XXXII. Mr Toogood

Chapter XXXIII. The Plumstead Foxes

Chapter XXXIV. Mrs Proudie Sends for Her Lawyer

Chapter XXXV. Lily Dale Writes Two Words in Her Book

Chapter XXXVI. Grace Crawley Returns Home

Chapter XXXVII. Hook Court

Chapter XXXVIII. Jael

Chapter XXXIX. A New Flirtation

Chapter XL. Mr Toogood’s Ideas About Society

Chapter XLI. Grace Crawley at Home

Chapter XLII. Mr Toogood Travels Professionally

Chapter XLIII. Mr Crosbie Goes into the City

Chapter XLIV. ‘I Suppose I Must Let You have it’

Chapter XLV. Lily Dale Goes to London

Chapter XLVI. The Bayswater Romance

Chapter XLVII. Dr Tempest at the Palace.

Chapter XLVIII. The Softness of Sir Raffle Buffle

Chapter XLVIV. Near the Close

Chapter L. Lady Lufton’s Proposition

Chapter LI. Mrs Dobbs Broughton Piles Her Faggots

Chapter LII. Why Don’t You have an ‘It’ for Yourself?

Chapter LIII. Rotten Row

Chapter LIV. The Clerical Commission

Chapter LV. Framley Parsonage

Chapter LVI. The Archdeacon Goes to Framley

Chapter LVII. A Double Pledge

Chapter LVIII. The Cross-Grainedness of Men

Chapter LIX. A Lady Presents Her Compliments to Miss L.d.

Chapter LX. The End of Jael and Sisera

Chapter LXI. ‘It’s Dogged as Does it’

Chapter LXII. Mr Crawley’s Letter to the Dean

Chapter LXIII. Two Visitors to Hogglestock

Chapter LXIV. Tragedy at Hook Court

Chapter LXV. Miss Van Siever Makes Her Choice

Chapter LXVI. Requiescat in Pace

Chapter LXIVII. In Memoriam

Chapter LXVIII. The Obstinacy of Mr Crawley

Chapter LXIX. Mr Crawley’s Last Appearance in His Own Pulpit

Chapter LXX. Mrs Arabin is Caught

Chapter LXXI. Mr Toogood at Silverbridge

Chapter LXXII. Mr Toogood at ‘The Dragon of Wantly’

Chapter LXXIII. There is Comfort at Plumstead

Chapter LXXIV. The Crawleys are Informed

Chapter LXXV. Madalina’s Heart is Bleeding

Chapter LXXVI. I Think he is Light of Heart

Chapter LXXVII. The Shattered Tree

Chapter LXXVIII. The Arabins Return to Barchester

Chapter LXXIX. Mr Crawley Speaks of His Coat

Chapter LXXX. Miss Demolines Desires to Be a Finger-Post

Chapter LXXXI. Chapter LXXXI Barchester Cloisters

Chapter LXXXII. The Last Scene at Hogglestock

Chapter LXXXIII. Mr Crawley is Conquered

Chapter LXXXIV. Conclusion

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of —-; let us call it Barchester. Were we to name Wells or Salisbury, Exeter, Hereford, or Gloucester, it might be presumed that something personal was intended; and as this tale will refer mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the town in question, we are anxious that no personality may be suspected. Let us presume that Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England, more remarkable for the beauty of its cathedral and the antiquity of its monuments than for any commercial prosperity; that the west end of Barchester is the cathedral close, and that the aristocracy of Barchester are the bishop, dean, and canons, with their respective wives and daughters.

Early in life Mr Harding found himself located at Barchester. A fine voice and a taste for sacred music had decided the position in which he was to exercise his calling, and for many years he performed the easy but not highly paid duties of a minor canon. At the age of forty a small living in the close vicinity of the town increased both his work and his income, and at the age of fifty he became precentor of the cathedral.

Mr Harding had married early in life, and was the father of two daughters. The eldest, Susan, was born soon after his marriage; the other, Eleanor, not till ten years later.

At the time at which we introduce him to our readers he was living as precentor at Barchester with his youngest daughter, then twenty-four years of age; having been many years a widower, and having married his eldest daughter to a son of the bishop a very short time before his installation to the office of precentor.

Scandal at Barchester affirmed that had it not been for the beauty of his daughter, Mr Harding would have remained a minor canon, but here probably Scandal lied, as she so often does; for even as a minor canon no one had been more popular among his reverend brethren in the close than Mr Harding; and Scandal, before she had reprobated Mr Harding for being made precentor by his friend the bishop, had loudly blamed the bishop for having so long omitted to do something for his friend Mr Harding. Be this as it may, Susan Harding, some twelve years since, had married the Rev. Dr Theophilus Grantly, son of the bishop, archdeacon of Barchester, and rector of Plumstead Episcopi, and her father became, a few months later, precentor of Barchester Cathedral, that office being, as is not usual, in the bishop’s gift.

Now there are peculiar circumstances connected with the precentorship which must be explained. In the year 1434 there died at Barchester one John Hiram, who had made money in the town as a wool-stapler, and in his will he left the house in which he died and certain meadows and closes near the town, still called Hiram’s Butts, and Hiram’s Patch, for the support of twelve superannuated wool-carders, all of whom should have been born and bred and spent their days in Barchester; he also appointed that an alms-house should be built for their abode, with a fitting residence for a warden, which warden was also to receive a certain sum annually out of the rents of the said butts and patches. He, moreover, willed, having had a soul alive to harmony, that the precentor of the cathedral should have the option of being also warden of the almshouses, if the bishop in each case approved.