Victorians! discussion

I thought it would be good to have a separate thread for planning the schedules for the rest of the Barsetshire novels we’re reading this year.

For Barchester Towers (March) my plan is to divide it into three parts, which would mean three threads, because it’s a triple-decker. I couldn’t find how it was originally divided into the three books, but Librivox has it as follows (probably according to the original):

Book 1: chapters 1–19
Book 2: chapters 20–34
Book 3: chapters 35–53

That would do for us, wouldn’t it?

About Barchester Towers
You need not have read the previous novel in the series, The Warden, in order to appreciate BT. It works as a stand-alone novel. Victorian Web introduces the main plot: “Old Bishop Grantly has died, and into the vacuum left by his demise — to the horror of some of the inhabitants of Barchester — steps his replacement Thomas Proudie, and his formidable wife. Along with the Proudies comes the Bishop's chaplain, the oily Mr Slope, and the stage is soon set for a titanic struggle for supremacy in the diocese between Mr Slope and Mrs Proudie.”

- Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3409
- Librivox audio: https://librivox.org/barchester-tower...
- Victorian Web articles: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/t...
- Interesting notes about the “Uses of Classics” chapter by chapter: http://www.trollope-apollo.com/?cat=3

I also recommend the BBC series “The Barchester Chronicles” which covers both The Warden and BT.

This map drawn by Trollope might prove useful:

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/t...

And others:

http://www.trollopeusa.org/map-of-tro...

Tommi wrote: "I also recommend the BBC series “The Barchester Chronicles” which covers both The Warden and BT. ."

I second that, but it has tons of spoilers for those who haven't read BT yet, so you might want to wait to watch it.

MadgeUK wrote: "This map drawn by Trollope might prove useful:

Although Trollope didn't always conform to his own map.

I like the plan, Tommi. Looking forward to it!

I look forward to our discussion of BT Tommi.

Oh thanks Peter, for mentioning this thread. As much as I loved the BBC series, I confess that i didn't quite finish reading BT. I put BT on hold for something else despite the fact that I was really enjoying it. I just love Trollope's writing here. He really is a man of many cloaks. He wields his pen, it seems, effortlessly, in order to suit the project in hand.

Next week on Friday, that is the 1st of May, I’ll set up the first thread for Dr. Thorne. My suggestion is to have three threads again, unless of course you have a better idea. Without having read the novel, it was hard to find how to divide it into three sections, but at least I did locate an Oxford edition from the 1870s that is in 3 volumes. It goes like this:

Chapters I - XIV (May 1 ->)
Chapters XV - XXX (May 8 ->)
Chapters XXXI - XLVII (May 15 ->)

In brackets I included the dates when I’m going to set up the threads, but again we may discuss whenever each of us has the time.

Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3166
LibriVox: https://librivox.org/doctor-thorne-by...

Thank you, Tommi. I'm reading 'The Warden' having finished BT. I hope that I'm finished in time for Dr Thorne. Thanks so much for the links. :-)

Sounds great, Tommi!