Barchester Towers, Miss Mackenzie and Cousin Henry

Barchester Towers: “Barchester Towers”, Trollope’s most popular novel, is the second of the six “Chronicles of Barsetshire.” “The Chronicles” follow the intrigues of ambition and love in the cathedral town of Barchester. Trollope was of course interested in the Church, that pillar of Victorian society – in its susceptibility to corruption, hypocrisy, and blinkered conservatism – but the Barsetshire novels are no more ‘ecclesiastical’ than his Palliser novels are ‘political’. It is the behaviour of the individuals within a power structure that interests him. In this novel, Trollope continues the story of Mr Harding and his daughter Eleanor, adding to his cast of characters that oily symbol of progress Mr Slope, the hen-pecked Dr Proudie, and the amiable and breezy Stanhope family. The central questions of this moral comedy – who will be warden? Who will be dean? Who will marry Eleanor? – are skilfully handled with that subtlety of ironic observation that has won Trollope such a wide and appreciative readership.

Miss Mackenzie: In ‘Miss Mackenzie’ Trollope made a deliberate attempt ‘to prove that a novel may be produced without any love’, but as he candidly admits in his ‘Autobiography, the attempt ‘breaks down before the conclusion.

In taking for his heroine an middle – aged spinster, his contemporaries of writing about young girls in love. Instead he depicts Margaret Mackenzie, overwhelmed with money troubles’, as she tries to assess the worth and motives of four very different suitors.

Although her creator calls her ‘unattractive’, most readers will warm to Miss Mackenzie and admire her modesty, dignity, and shrewdness.

Cousin Henry: Cousin Henry, first published in 1879, is perhaps the most unusual and intriguing of Trollope’s shorter novels. Trollope’s masterly handling of the novel’s unlikely hero, a tiresome and timid coward, is notable for its insight and compassion.