Exploring Anthony Trollope discussion

Trollope's series having to do with the clergy in a fictitious county of England he called Barset. At the Trollope Society US, is a map of Barsetshire.

Each book in this series is a stand alone novel and they do not have to be read in order, although Barchester Towers will contain spoilers of The Warden if it has not been read first. However, if you intend to read all of them, you will have a better appreciation of the characters and the overall thrust of the novels if you do so.

This is the thread to discuss this 6-volume series as a whole. There are individual threads to discuss the novels.

As this series involves the Church of England, perhaps some background as to its structure would be helpful. Here is a portion of the Wikipedia article that deals with structure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_o...

I sort of wish I'd read these paragraphs before I started reading this series. Although I was raised in the Episcopal church, which is the US equivalent to the Church of England, many of the terms were unfamiliar to me.

Prebendary was one of those unfamiliar terms and is not included in the above.

Thanks, Elizabeth. I will be starting with The Warden. So after that I don't have to read in order? I don't think I have all of them but I'm not sure.

Cynthia wrote: "Thanks, Elizabeth. I will be starting with The Warden. So after that I don't have to read in order? I don't think I have all of them but I'm not sure."

I think that since you are going to read them all, you would appreciate reading them in order. However, Barchester Towers and Doctor Thorne could be inter-changed in their reading order and probably not spoil anything. The last 3 books have characters that appear in the earlier books, including those two. Trollope does a fairly good job of giving the prior plot points if you haven't read the earlier ones, which is why it is generally accepted that each of them are a stand alone novel. That background plot might be spoilers for you, or you might miss nuances.

Thanks again. I'll check my stash and fill in what I need.

Enjoy your weekend.

It's always wonderful to have a stash. ;-)

Wow. I just checked and it seems as if I've acquired them all over the years except the last one. I'm set to go. That's what you get for not being able to resist used book stores.

I don't know if you aware that late in life, Trollope
revisited Barsetshire in his story "The Two Heroines of Plumplington". One of the Christmas Annuals asked him if he would consider writing a new Barsetshire story, and at first he showed no interest, but obviously changed his mind for some reason.
Although this story is not officially part of the Barchester Chronicles, it does take place in the same imaginary world.

I will look forward to that one!

It first appeared in Good Cheer, the christmas number
of the periodical Good Words in 1882, and mentions the contest between Mr Harding and Hiram's Hospital.
It is considered as one of his Christmas stories.

Elizabeth, in case you want to make a new thread for the Christmas stories, I believe this is the list:

Christmas Stories
Mistletoe Bough, The.
Catherine Carmichael
Christmas At Thompson Hall.
Christmas Day At Kirkby Cottage.
Not If I Know It.
Two Generals, The.
Two Heroines Of Plumplington, The.
Widow's Mite, The.

David, I don't see those as a separate volume. Are they not all included in one of his story collections?

Some of them but not all of them.
These would have all originally appeared in Christmas issues of periodicals, and some of them were collected later into book form in Trollope's lifetime,
and others were not. As far as I can ascertain.

The Mistletoe Bough was collected in Tales of All Countries Series Two

The Two Generals and The Widow's Mite in Lotta Schmidt and Other Stories.

Christmas at Thompson Hall in Why Frau Frohmann raised her prices? and other stories.

The others were uncollected in Trollope's lifetime,
so maybe they could be included as Uncollected Stories.

OK, I think I found them all in collections as follows:

Mistletoe Bough, The. - Tales of All Countries II
Catherine Carmichael - Editor's Tales
Christmas At Thompson Hall - Frau Frohmann
Christmas Day At Kirkby Cottage - Editor's Tales
Not If I Know It - Two Heroines of Plumplington
Two Generals, The - Lotta Schmidt
Two Heroines Of Plumplington, The - Title of collection
Widow's Mite, The - Lotta Schmidt

Okay, sounds good.
It looks as though I forgot to check An Editor's Tale
and I'm sure the Two Heroines of Plumplington collection would have been posthumous, which is probably why I missed that one, as these two stories
were amongst the last fiction that Trollope wrote.

I can't find either of those two stories in an Editor's Tales and I don't see how that's possible
as An Editor's Tale appeared in 1870.
Christmas Day at Kirby Cottage first appeared in Routledge's Christmas Annual in Christmas 1870
and Catherine Carmichael is dated 1878.
Both after publication of An Editor's Tales.
Interested in finding out where you got the info.

Let's move this discussion over to List of Works.