'You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.'
John Bold has lost his heart to Eleanor Harding but he is a political radical who has launched a campaign against the management of the charity of which her father is the Warden. This witty love story combines a comic portrayal of life in an English cathedral with larger social and political issues.
The Warden is the first of six books which form Trollope's Barsetshire series of novels. The thoroughly revised new edition includes 'The Two Heroines of...

'I hated the office. I hated my work...the only career in life within my reach was that of an author.'
The only autobiography by a major Victorian novelist, Trollope's account offers a fascinating insight into his literary life and opinions. After a miserable childhood and misspent youth, Trollope turned his life around at the age of twenty-six. By 1860 the 'hobbledehoy' had become both a senior civil servant and a best-selling novelist. He worked for the Post Office for many years and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament. Best-known for the two series of novels grouped...

Sybil, or The Two Nations is one of the finest novels to depict the social problems of class-ridden Victorian England. The book's publication in 1845 created a sensation, for its immediacy and readability brought the plight of the working classes sharply to the attention of the reading public. The "two nations" of the alternative title are the rich and poor, so disparate in their opportunities and living conditions, and so hostile to each other, that they seem almost to belong to different countries. The gulf between them is given a poignant focus by the central romantic...