Victorians! discussion

I saw this web site in recent days and wanted to add the link here. It is an attractive site and contains much Trollope book info. To find the book listing, I went to the Book tab, then Advanced Search, then Book index.

The Trollope Society, Trollope Book Info Site

Nice site; thanks SarahC

My pleasure. I am still having fun reading through it myself. Trollope is one of my "new" authors :)

Hope you love it as much as I do!

I am thoroughly enjoying reading our upcoming club selection The Way We Live Now. At the end of the year (after I finish the complete Forsyte Chronicles) I plan to start the 6 volume series of Trollope's Barsetshire series.

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I am thoroughly enjoying reading our upcoming club selection The Way We Live Now. At the end of the year (after I finish the complete Forsyte Chronicles) I plan to start the 6 volume..."

Both TWWLN and the Barsetshire are very favorite books of mine. I hope you enjoy Barset as much as I do!

Everyman, I can't even express how much I'm looking forward to them!

Trollope is on my TBR list also, which is already a mile long, thanks to all the great suggestions from these groups.

Barset is my preferite victorian location ever!!! Those books are grat for me, and I'm really looking forward to read The Way We Live Now together!

LauraT wrote: "Barset is my preferite victorian location ever!!! Those books are grat for me, and I'm really looking forward to read The Way We Live Now together!"

Unfortunately, TWWLN isn't set in Barset. But it's still a great book.

I know that it is not set in Barset!!! Those are finished!!! But I'm finding it wonderfully "up to date", seeing all that's happening to the stock market these days!!!

What is a good Trollope novel to start out with? I'm intrigued and would like to get to know his works.

The one I started with, and the one that made me fall in love with Trollope, was The Eustace Diamonds. It's part of a series of novels (Palliser, I think) but it stands on its own quite well.

Another really fun one is Barchester Towers. It's the second in the Barsetshire series, but I really don't think you need to read The Wardenfirst.

Anyway, I'd go with Eustace Diamonds. Like I said, that's where I got hooked.

Thanks, Katy! I'm going to try TED first, because The Way We Live Now sounds incredibly interesting, but I am about to embark on multiple big book reads and don't have room for it at the moment.

I've met Trollope with The Warden and fell in love with all his books afterwards! The whole Barset serie is wonderfull; I'm afraind to read the palliser Novels because I may be diseppointed after them!!!

The Palliser and Barsetshire series overlap a bit! (mainly via the Duke of Omnium, who is the Palliser in the Palliser series).

Looks like that whatever I pick I can't go wrong. Many thanks for your insight.

Sera wrote: "Looks like that whatever I pick I can't go wrong. Many thanks for your insight."

Well, there are a few of his books I think are losers, but given how prolific he was, that's not a surprise, is it? His best are very good, and his almost best are still mighty good.

My first Trollope was Barchester Towers.

I am going to do some hunting on Kindle to see what is available. I won't be able to get to the read for a bit so I'll have some time to figure out a good starting point. I am very much interested in TWWLN so that may be it or I'll give one of the series a shot. It's great to have so much from which to choose.

He's public domain, so pretty much everyting is available for the Kindle. That's how I read The Way We Live Now, and I have all of The Barsetshire Chronicles awaiting me.

We had in Italy last year a tv programm based on two classes of high school fighting against each other answering about books, mainly classics.
Every time someone missed the right answer concernig a particularly good book, the conductor said: "What can I say? Only that you're lucky to have to read this particular book still"

Well Elisabeth(Alaska), you're really lucky to have all of them still to read!

Sounds like Quiz Bowl, which I did back in high school.

I'm very lucky to have so many good books yet unread! I think I'd like two lifetimes!

Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "He's public domain, so pretty much everyting is available for the Kindle. That's how I read The Way We Live Now, and I have all of The Barsetshire Chronicles awaiting me."

That's great! I cannot tell you how happy I am to have all of this author's works awaiting me :)

Yeah, it's a wonderful feeling to discover Trollope and then realize that he wrote a vast ton of books.

Sera wrote: "I am going to do some hunting on Kindle to see what is available. I won't be able to get to the read for a bit so I'll have some time to figure out a good starting point. I am very much intereste..."

If you go to Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
they have a lot of his works formatted for the Kindle. Most of the free books on Amazon are based on the Gutenberg editions anyhow.

I just checked their Anthony Trollope page
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/searc...
and they have 76 works by him. A few are audio editions (generally Libravox) but most of them are texts available in Kindle format (as well as a variety of other formats).

They are listed in order of popularity, which may help you decide which ones you want to put highest on your reading list. The top four are:
Can You Forgive Him - first book in the Palliser set
The Way We Live Now -- standalone book which is one of his best known
The Warden -- first book in the Barchester series
Barchester Towers -- second book in the Barchester series

For curiosity's sake, number 76 is the audio version of The Warden. Number 75 is George Walker at Suez, which I have never heard of even though I thought I was pretty well informed about Trollope. Guess not! But it's only 61K, so it's presumably one of his short stories, of which he wrote a number.

Er, that's Can You Forgive Her?.

Unless Alice has undergone a recent sex change!

OK, I give up; I'm on Can You Forgive Her? from January

Everyman wrote: "Sera wrote: "I am going to do some hunting on Kindle to see what is available. I won't be able to get to the read for a bit so I'll have some time to figure out a good starting point. I am very m..."

Thanks so much, Everyman!

Susanna wrote: "Er, that's Can You Forgive Her?.

Unless Alice has undergone a recent sex change!"

Oops.

I knew that.

But age creeps up on all of us.

Can You Forgive Me?

Nice thread. I just added the Palliser series to my wish list.

Snort!

Sure, EM.

Everyman wrote: "Susanna wrote: "Er, that's Can You Forgive Her?.

Unless Alice has undergone a recent sex change!"

Oops.

I knew that.

But age creeps up on all of us.

Can You Forgive Me?"

Ha ha - no worries. I'm just happy my clothes matched when I got dressed this morning.

Sera wrote: "Thanks, Katy! I'm going to try TED first, because The Way We Live Now sounds incredibly interesting, but I am about to embark on multiple big book reads and don't have room for it at the moment."

I think if The Warden had been my first Trollope novel, I might not have fallen in love as I did. Compared to Towers, it seems pretty dull to me. That's why I'd tell people just to go ahead with Towers.

'Cause there is nothing - nothing - funnier than Mme Neroli being carried into a party on a divan.

Yeah, you don't need to have read The Warden to read Barchester Towers.

Maybe that's why Towers is second on the Kindle popularity list. I will likely pick that or TWWLN. In looking at my schedule, I probably won't be able to get to it until February or March. I've decided to tackle Villette now since it is already running away with the lead in the poll. I'm going to be the big book queen in the new year, but I really need get back to Our Mutual Friend and finish that one. Hopefully, later in the week, after I finish some library reads.

I believe Barchester Towers is about half the length of The Way We Live Now (which is a big fat one), if that's of any concern as to reading time available.

The 6th book of the Barsetshire series, The Last Chronicle of Barset, is on the 1001 list. I intened to read all 6, in order, beginning with The Warden.

I downloaded both without looking at page counts. Towers may be the way to go if there is such a huge difference. Maybe I'll nominate TWWLN for a future Chunksters read. Ok, I think that I've finally figured this out.

Thanks, all, for the help.

Elisabeth wrote: The 6th book of the Barsetshire series, The Last Chronicle of Barset, is on the 1001 list. I intened to read all 6, in order, beginning with The Warden.

That, with
The Small House at Allington is the one I liked least of the the serie; I've read very often that The Warden is not that nice; for me it was love at first sight. I know that you can read each of those novels on his own, but reading them following the right order is much more nice: you find the same characters growns and developed; you feel at home with them ...

LauraT wrote: "for me it was love at first sight. I know that you can read each of those novels on his own, but reading them following the right order is much more nice: you find the same characters growns and developed; you feel at home with them ... "

Oooooh, thank you for the encouragement!

Let me know if you start them Elisabeth; I'll start the Palliser novels bex year ...

Adam wrote: "I've just been looking at Trollope book on Amazon and find that I can get many of them cheap or free. That's always a good incentive."

The Way We Live Now is certainly an excellent book, but it's not really representative of the bulk of his work. So be sure to read other of his books to get a fuller understanding of why he was, and remains such a beloved author.

i'm reading all of the pallisers (and then perhaps the barsetshire novels) in 2013. i'm halfway through the eustace diamonds, and it is getting sooo good. so, even though i've only read three trollope novels thus far, the eustace diamonds is definitely the one i would recommend to a first time reader. the way that he has interwoven the characters' lives and opposing interests is genius.

gillianmarie wrote: "so, even though i've only read three trollope novels thus far, the eustace diamonds is definitely the one i would recommend to a first time reader. "

Ah, but wait until you get to the Barchester books. You might change your mind! [g]

Adam wrote: "...Everyman wrote: "Ah, but wait until you get to the Barchester books."

And titles of these would be...?"

Chronicles of Barsetshire

The Warden (1855)
Barchester Towers (1857)
Dr. Thorne (1858)
Framley Parsonage (1861)
The Small House at Allington (1864)
The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)

Source: Wikipedia w/goodreads linkages.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_... for a list of the Palliser novels as well. Boy, was this man prolific! Those two series are only a fraction of his oeuvre.




If you click on a book cover (one or two cases), you may not get the same set of reviews as from the book name list. I think the book name list is the better one for reaching good reviews, but you may want to play with editions a bit for any of especial interest.

Since I nominated The Eustace Diamonds for an upcoming read, I may come back and add the Palliser list to this thread another time. But, for now....

Adam wrote: "And titles of these would be...? "

Thanks to Lily for responding. I would only note that the first two, at least, The Warden and Barchester Towers, should be read first and in order; after that, it's better to read in order but not essential.

Adam wrote: "Thank you very much for the information! The Warden will go on my priority tbr shelf."

Please don't let it stop you for the others -- I personally don't much care for that book -- still haven't finished it, although it is short. But it does make sense to read it before the rest of the Barchester books.

And the second one in the series, Barchester Towers, is a corker.