… Or perhaps in this case, the better part of The Last Chronicle of Barset. It is a magnificent book – at least in my opinion most of it is. Anthony Trollope is a favourite author of mine, and I fear that he has fallen out of fashion. He wrote over 40 novels between the 1840s and 1880s, including two superb sequences, the Barchester Chronicles, and The Pallisers. The six Barchester novels are book-ended by the exquisitely short The Warden, and the dauntingly long The Last Chronicle of Barset. This sequence describes a world – a prosperous Southern county, with a dominant cathedral city, great houses, gentlemen’s estates – and peoples it with characters from the two powerbases: the cathedral close and the landed aristocracy and gentry, and those who interact with them, for good or ill. The county of Barset also has strong links to London – the magnates sit in Parliament and pull political strings behind the scenes. The clergy are the grandees of the Established Church, and the mid-19th century is their heyday. Clever young men start their paths to prosperity there, in the City, or the professions, the Civil Service, or journalism. County and Capital, it is a richly detailed world that I found easy to enter into and learn to love.
I think there must be many readers who have embarked on the novels (The Warden, Barchester Towers, Dr Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington, and The Last Chronicle) and have never made it as far as number 6 – or if they have, the 900+ pages have seemed too daunting. However, this is one of Trollope’s finest novels, and to my mind that makes it one of the finest of the Victorian era. And my secret, that I am going to impart to you, is that it doesn’t have to be quite that long after all (I’m braced for the comments accusing me of heresy).
The Last Chronicle of Barset centres around one of the most original creations in fiction – the Reverend Josiah Crawley, Perpetual Curate of Hogglestock in the County of Barset. If there is a poor, barren, ugly part of that earthly paradise, it is Hogglestock with its community of brickmakers, and the Revd Mr Crawley shares their poverty and ministers to their meagre spiritual needs with a fiercely angry pride in his own abasement. He has a wife, whom he married young, and they had had a small tribe of children of whom one son and two daughters survive, for whose future he despairs, and for whom alone he will accept support and charity. His means are as slender as can be, he has friends who could support his way through a world that is cruel to him, but his exaggerated sense of self-respect has him repulse them and resent all their attempts to aid him. He is the epitome of a disappointed man – disappointed in ambition, preferment, prosperity. If Job in his affliction was a disappointed man, that is the scale of disappointment we are talking about. His wife, daughters and friends respect and fear him, and yet love him. Somehow, Trollope makes that work, and makes the reader (well, this one) respect and fear him too, and, if not love him, then feel intense pity and sympathy for him, however bitter his words, or black his mood and behaviour. It is the love and respect of his family and friends that just about keep him from suicidal despair. All this is imparted by Trollope with intense sympathy and humanity as a carefully observed case study in mental illness and its effects. As one of the great characters in fiction, trust me, Josiah Crawley is a tour de force.
Into his life, which could not get any more desperate, comes the terrible occurrence of being accused of stealing a cheque for twenty pounds, a truly dreadful crime in that era. He knows he had the cheque in his possession, but cannot account for how it came to him. This mystery is treated as a puzzle to be solved, but also as the impulse for describing how it affected him and his family, for revealing the true nature of their relationship with their neighbours. For all that the Revd Mr Crawley is regarded as next to mad, he also commands respect and grudging admiration – in a society where success comes to Smooth Men, he is ‘an Hairy Man’. He is seen almost as some sort of primitive saint, working with the poor, unconcerned for his own comfort. He is a man of legendary learning – while his son goes away to school at the expense of the friend of his youth, the Dean of Barchester, he teaches his daughters to read the classics that are his only solace. His wife is universally loved, just as his daughter Grace is particularly loved by a handsome hero. Almost no-one wants to believe that he has committed a crime – and the person who does want to believe it most and hounds him for it is morally defeated by him. So, the mainspring of the novel is this magnificent anti-hero and the Gordian knot of the mystery that is likely to destroy him and all his family. Please, please, if you enjoy Trollope at all, but have not yet tried this novel, do read it!
But then, oh dear, it is over 900 pages long….. . However (Hilary’s heresy coming up) – it has two entirely standalone sub-plots, one of which is not worthy to share the same binding as the history of Mr Crawley, and another that is, if not quite so unworthy, then mildly irritating. Both take place in London (and in a way I think are meant to point up the difference between London as decadent Cockayne, full of morally compromised people, and Barset, the heaven on earth, presided over by a beneficent High-and-Dry church establishment and a paternalistic landed aristocracy.) One strand concerns an intrigue manufactured by a bored, unhappy wife of a financier, Mrs Dobbs Broughton, between a fashionable painter, Conway Dalrymple, and marriageable Clara Van Siever. Dalrymple is painting a massive study of the most gruesome of Old Testament stories ‘Jael and Sisera’ (I do not I feel have to draw a diagram of the risks Miss Van Siever is running in posing as Jael). This strand is one I have read just the once, and then have never felt the need to read again (for this is a novel to return to time and again). So, it is very easy – cut out and discard, if you like. I love Trollope for the kindness he does to his readers. They occupy chapters of their own – just skim the first page, and if you see the words Jael, Clara, Dalrymple, skip nimbly past them.
The other strand concerns a Barset lad, John Eames, a rising young man in London who is doing his best to help unravel the mystery of the stolen cheque. He worships the ground that Lily Dale treads on in Barset – but she has given her heart to another, less worthy person, in the previous novel. He will love her limply and unrequitedly, while setting himself up for breach of promise in London. There is a whole other piece to write on my irritation with Lily Dale, the heroine of The Small House At Allington, someone who deserves a slap with a wet fish if ever any heroine did, and the all round pathos of John Eames, who is, as someone once said of someone, so wet you could shoot snipe off him (except just the once when he does manage to defend his lady’s honour). There is more to fascinate in this strand, though, especially these days, as Trollope is immensely knowledgeable about the workings of City finance and the cast of characters who work in it, and there are many parallels to the City of today. There is also the piquant contrast of the catastrophe in Barsetshire of the theft of twenty pounds, with the predatory trading of the City financiers … it looks as though I may be talking myself back into keeping this strand after all …
In short, though, these two sub-plots detract from the astonishing realisation of Josiah Crawley, character and plot, and if you are daunted by the length of The Last Chronicle of Barset, you might consider sticking with him and his horrible dilemma to its resolution. It would be a shame to give up before you get there.
Anthony Trollope: The Last Chronicle of Barset. Penguin Classics ed. London: Penguin Books, 928pp.
ISBN 13: 9780140437522
The Penguin Classics version is available for Kindle. For a free ebook text, go to Project Gutenberg.
The Last Chronicle of Barset, like the Duke’s Children in the Palliser novels, is the only one I haven’t read. But it’s because I’m saving them
I love Trollope. So glad to find another fan 
Excellent review! I have read most of the Barsetshire novels but not this one, which I am now longing to read. I can’t disapprove of your heresy, being someone who has “read” War and Peace twice, skipping the war bits both times — and I so agree about Lily, though I think I might actually go for the full 900 first time around.
This is a wonderful review – many thanks for posting it. I have read the first two Barsetshire novels.
Well, I say ‘read’ but I actually listened to Timothy West reading them to me via Audible. I shall ration myself with the rest of the series but I’ll make sure I get to the end………..then I can start on the Pallisers!
Hilary, what a lovely review, and I am so pleased there are other people out there who enjoy Trollope – as you say, he seems to have fallen out of fashion, which is a shame, because he was a wonderful story teller whose characters are far more human and less grotesque than many of Dickens’ creations, especially the women. I can only echo what you say and urge people to read this, although I’m not sure it would be a good introduction to Trollope: newcomers may prefer a shorter novel.
This was a terrific review, Hilary, your enthusiasm is so contagious, the mere 900 pages seem a minor irritant. I keep meaning to tackle Trollope, but am a bit intimidated & not really certain where to begin. But this one seems intriguing enough that I must read it at some point.
I also like how you have an appropriate manner of insult for the time period when you are annoyed with one character, wanting to give them “a slap with a wet fish”. All around good job with this review!
Aw, thank you everyone. Chris, you’re right – Last Chronicle is not the place to start with Trollope (apart from anything else, clue in title – it ties up loose ends from the earlier books, and brings in lots more characters whose stories have been told (not just Lily Dale)).
My vote for best book to begin with is Barchester Towers, although The Warden, which precedes it, is very short, and sets the scene, so a new reader might as well start there. Barchester Towers, though, is a novel of genius. It introduces the wonderful comic creations the Bishop, his wife Mrs Proudie, and his oleaginous chaplain, Mr Slope. If ever you hear someone say ‘X says, and I agree with him’ (a phrase I over-use) that person is quoting Mrs Proudie (‘The Bishop says (and I agree with him)’). In Last Chronicle it is Mrs Proudie who harries the Revd Mr Crawley, but he refuses to to talk to her, until he turns on her with the all-conquering phrase ‘Peace, Woman. [...] The distaff were more fitting for you.’ A phrase I do NOT over-use. He is the only character in all six novels to face her down. Brilliant.
Yes, and I’ve reminded myself – ‘So wet you could shoot snipe off him’ comes from Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, and is said of Kenneth Widmerpool by Peter Templar. Sorry to be too lazy to look it up sooner.
I think I might actually try this. I love the sound of the Crawley plot … but I, in common with many others, have always been daunted by the sheer size of the book.
Tremendous review, Hilary … You’ve convinced me!
I loved this, comrade H — I might actually try reading the goshdarn thing now!
I have never read Trollope, though I keep wondering if I might like Vanity Fair. Your review made me laugh – so often when re-reading old favourites, I skip to the good bits!
Suguna Ramanathan
I am reading The Last Chronicle of Barset for the third time and am delighted to read the review (excellent) and remarks posted here. What a book it is ! I nearly didn’t board my plane from Bangalore to Ahmedabad yesterday, so deep was I in the novel, familiar though it was. I agree with the point that the London plot distracts from the superb Josiah Crawley plot; would rather have more of Grace Crawley and the Prettymans and the Proudies. I couldn’t agree more with the remark about Lily Dale–irritating is the right word exactly. In fact, The Small House at Allington is the most irritating novel altogether. How wonderful to know Trollope is still read by so many; he hasn’t really had his due. Barchester Towers and the The Warden are my favourites; the Last Chronicle comes a close third
How lovely to hear from another enthusiast for Trollope’s novels, Suguna. I find his novels tremendous page-turners, but I have to say I’ve never risked missing a train or plane yet – that’s a great story!