In the mid nineteenth century there were a number of financial scandals in the Church of England including those of Rochester, where the endowments which should have supported the King’s School Canterbury had been diverted to the Dean and Chapter; and of the hospital of St Cross at Winchester where the Rev. Francis North, later the Earl of Guildford, had been appointed to the mastership of the hospital by his father the bishop. The revenues of the hospital were very considerable, the work involved minimal. The scandal soon broke. Tingay, Lance O. (1951). "The Reception of Trollope's First Novel", Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 195–200.

Instead, he tells a charming story—one with mixed but sympathetic characters, using a narrator who employs gentle irony to undercut “cant,” the Victorian word for fashionable self-righteousness, wherever he finds it. BFI Screenonline: Barchester Chronicles, The (1982)". www.screenonline.org.uk . Retrieved 31 October 2020. Sullivan, Ceri (2013). Literature in the Public Service: Sublime Bureaucracy, Palgrave Macmillan, Ch. 3, pp. 65–99.Trollope, A. (1855). The Warden. London: Longmans, in Poovey, Mary (2010-12-23), "Trollope's Barsetshire Series", The Cambridge Companion to Anthony Trollope, Cambridge University Press, pp. 31–43, doi:10.1017/ccol9780521886369.004, ISBN 978-0-521-88636-9, retrieved 2020-09-26

In the late 1870s, Trollope furthered his travel writing career by visiting southern Africa, including the Cape Colony and the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Admitting that he initially assumed that the Afrikaners had "retrograded from civilization, and had become savage, barbarous, and unkindly", Trollope wrote at length on Boer cultural habits, claiming that the "roughness... Spartan simplicity and the dirtiness of the Boer’s way of life [merely] resulted from his preference for living in rural isolation, far from any town." In the completed work, which Trollope simply titled South Africa (1877), he described the mining town of Kimberly as being "one of the most interesting places on the face of the earth." [50] Lee, Sidney (1901). "Memoir of George Smith". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co. Of the intense desire which Mr. Harding felt to be assured on fit authority that he was wronging no man, that he was entitled in true equity to his income, that he might sleep at night without pangs of conscience, that he was no robber, no spoiler of the poor; that he and all the world might be openly convinced that he was not the man which The Jupiter had described him to be; of such longings on the part of Mr. Harding, Sir Abraham was entirely ignorant; nor, indeed, could it be looked on as part of his business to gratify such desires. What novelist thought the central character of a work should be neither a faultless victim nor a morally pristine super-person, but rather an ordinary man, weak but well-meaning, a “mixed” character with good and bad, noble and foolish characteristics all mixed together? Trollope and the Matter of Ireland," Anthony Trollope, ed. Tony Bareham, London: Vision Press 1980, pp. 24–25

Escott, T. H. S. (1913). Anthony Trollope, his Work, Associates and Literary Originals, John Lane: The Bodley Head. Kennedy, John Dorrance (1975). Trollope's Widows, Beyond the Stereotypes of Maiden and Wife, (PhD Dissertation), University of Florida. Trollope shared one belief with most other Victorians that many people today might now regard as quaint: he believed that the novel, or whatever the current form of popular story-telling might be, should be morally uplifting; it should teach the reader something about how to be a better human being. However, as we have observed through our discussion today, preachiness and outrage have little part in his teaching method. Instead, he relies on humor and even-handedness in service to his central message: sympathy, benevolence, and understanding toward fellow human beings. Now at the height of his popularity, [26] Trollope wrote the fifth novel in the series, The Small House at Allington. [24] It was also published in serial form, between September 1862 and April 1864 in The Cornhill, and then published as a 2-volume novel by Smith, Elder & Co. in 1864. [24] Some have suggested that the character of Johnny Eames was inspired by Trollope's image of his younger self. [27] Finally came the Last Chronicle of Barset, which Trollope claimed was "the best novel I have written". [20] He took inspiration from his father when creating protagonist Josiah Crawley, while reflecting his mother, a successful author in later life, in the character of Mrs Crawley. [28] It was released serially between 1866 and 1867 and published as a 2-volume work in 1867 by Smith, Elder & Co. [28] Anthony Trollope's signature Another early sequel was Barchester Pilgrimage, by the renowned priest, novelist and theologian Ronald Knox, following the children and grandchildren of Trollope's characters.

Trollope, Anthony (2014) [1858]. Dentith, Simon (ed.). Doctor Thorne. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199662784. Like many today who are alarmed by the amount of false news or unfair public shaming spread through irresponsible tweets or viral social media posts, Trollope was hugely critical of the power that irresponsible media had to pronounce judgment against every aspect of government, business, or church structure. Trollope likens Towers to the Pope, a man whose opinions are practically unassailable. Trollope wrote a travel book focusing on his experiences in the US during the American Civil War titled North America (1862). Aware that his mother had published a harshly anti-American travel book about the U.S. (titled the Domestic Manners of the Americans) and feeling markedly more sympathetic to the United States, Trollope resolved to write a work which would "add to the good feeling which should exist between two nations which ought to love each other." During his time in America, Trollope remained a steadfast supporter of the Union, being a committed abolitionist who was opposed to the system of slavery as it existed in the South. [50] Hiram's Hospital is an almshouse supported by a medieval charitable bequest to the Diocese of Barchester. The income maintains the almshouse itself, supports its twelve bedesmen, and provides a comfortable abode and living for its warden. Mr Harding was appointed to this position through the patronage of his old friend the Bishop of Barchester, who is also the father of Archdeacon Grantly, to whom Harding's older daughter, Susan, is married. The warden, who lives with his other child, his unmarried younger daughter Eleanor, performs his duties conscientiously.

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Saintsbury, George (1881). "Trollope, Anthony". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.XIII (9thed.). pp.585–586. Chapter 2. John Bold has inherited property, and although technically a surgeon, he practises medicine amongst the poor without charging for his services. He is a radical reformer and is in love with Harding’s daughter Eleanor. Harding’s son-in-law Archdeacon Grantly disapproves of Bold, who starts legal enquiries into the financial basis of the almshouses (the hospital). And, as he finished what he had to say, he played up such a tune as never before had graced the chambers of any attorney-general. He was standing up, gallantly fronting Sir Abraham, and his right arm passed with bold and rapid sweeps before him, as though he were embracing some huge instrument, which allowed him to stand thus erect; and with the fingers of his left hand he stopped, with preternatural velocity, a multitude of strings, which ranged from the top of his collar to the bottom of the lappet of his coat. Welcome to Drumsna". GoIreland. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008 . Retrieved 25 June 2008. John Bold, the brave young reformer, gets a treatment similar to these other characters. The narrator shows clearly that he has admirable qualities, but Mr. Bold is hardly a perfect individual: