Anthony Trollope's Barchester Towers (1857) is the most beloved of the six Chronicles of Barsetshire and one of the great comic novels in the English language. When the old Bishop of Barchester dies, the cozy settlement of the cathedral city collapses, and a war breaks out for control of its offices, incomes, and influence. On one side is the domineering Mrs Proudie, who rules her weak husband the new bishop and means to rule his whole diocese; on the other is his oily, ambitious chaplain, the Reverend Obadiah Slope, who has decided that Barchester is not big enough for the two of them.

Caught between them are the gentler people of Barchester: the saintly old Mr Harding, whose decency leaves him helpless among such schemers, and his wealthy young widowed daughter, Eleanor Bold, whose hand — and fortune — become a prize the rivals contend for. Into this staid world erupts the absurd, worldly Stanhope family, and above all the beautiful, mischievous Signora Neroni, who reclines on her sofa and demolishes the dignity of every clergyman who comes near her.

Trollope tells it all in the most companionable voice in English fiction — an affectionate, amused, candid narrator who steps openly into his own story, confides in the reader, and even refuses to keep us in suspense about the ending. Beneath the comedy lies a shrewd study of ambition, money, marriage, and the gap between spiritual offices and worldly motives. The novel stands perfectly on its own, but rewards reading after its short predecessor, The Warden.

This edition presents the complete public-domain text of the 1857 novel in clean, readable typesetting prepared for the modern e-reader.