The Warden

First published in 1855, The Warden introduces the cathedral city of Barchester and the quiet, conscientious clergyman Septimus Harding, whose position as warden of Hiram’s Hospital brings him an income that suddenly becomes the subject of public controversy. When the young reformer John Bold challenges the arrangement, Harding finds himself caught between the expectations of the Church, the arguments of the press, the affection of his daughter Eleanor, and the demands of his own conscience. What begins as a dispute over the administration of a charitable institution becomes a searching examination of the difference between legal entitlement and moral justice.

The first novel in Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles, The Warden is a measured, humane work of Victorian social fiction, distinguished by its resistance to easy moral judgements. Trollope gives genuine weight to both institutional reform and personal integrity, while exposing the cruelties that can arise when public opinion reduces a complicated human life to a cause. Its gentle irony and psychological subtlety established the foundations for the richer ecclesiastical comedy of Barchester Towers and announced a novelist unusually attentive to the private costs of public virtue.

From the book

“It is impossible to conceive a case of greater injustice.”

— Anthony Trollope, The Warden

On The Warden

“The characters of the bishop, of the archdeacon, of the archdeacon’s wife, and especially of the warden, are all well and clearly drawn.”

— Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography