Review: The Warden

This week has been truly awful. The only good thing about it is that I finished another book on my list of books to read this year. So here's a review of it.

Searching for a cover to put here brought up some really weird results. Most of them had nothing to do with Anthony Trollope or Victorian novels, and were instead a mixture of true crime and fantasy.

The Warden was Anthony Trollope's fourth novel, first published in 1855. It's the first in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series. There have been at least two miniseries based on it.

As the title implies, the story revolves around Mr. Harding, warden of an almshouse. John Bold, a reformer and also Mr. Harding's future son-in-law, decides Mr. Harding is getting too much money from the almshouse. It leads to a complicated muddle of lawyers, newspapers, and Mr. Harding's retirement.

Barchester Towers manages to turn an uninteresting subject -- rivalries between clergymen -- into an interesting novel. Alas, The Warden doesn't manage to do the same. Even though it's a short novel I found it frequently dragged. None of the characters are as sympathetic as they would be in the sequel. And the whole time I was reading, I could only think, "What a lot of fuss about nothing!"

I must say I was disappointed in this book. It has its good moments, but just as often it becomes a plodding bore.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 5/10.