Framley Parsonage

Framley Parsonage is the fourth in Trollope's Barsetshire novels. Trollope (1815-1882) wrote the novel as a serial in the influential Cornhill magazine in 186-61, This novel along with the others in the series: The Warden; Dr. Thorne, The Small House at Allington, Barchester Towers and the Last Chronicle of Barset is a delightful return to mid-Victorian middle class society in a rural mythical county named Barsetshire. In this long novel of over 600 pages there are several stories. The main character is the Rev. Mark Robarts, a doctor's son, who at a young age becomes the vicar of Framley Parsonage. He has children and a kind wife Fanny. Mark has visions of grandeur in his head. He lends money to the unscrupulous Member of Parliament Mr. Sowerby. As a result of this fatuity Mark falls into debt. His friends rally to his aid. Mark's sister Lucy Robarts is novel's heroine. She falls in love with the wealthy Lord Lufton who lives at Eustace Court with his formidable mother Lady Lufton. Lady Lufton wants her son Ludovic to wed Griselda Grantley the statuesque but dull as dishwater and cold as a cucumber daughter of Archdeacon Grantley. Lufton is torn between these two women. We see Lady Lufton overcome her prejudice against Lucy. Lucy is a kind girl who minister to the family of the poor clergyman Josiah Crawley. She wins over the heart of Lady Lufton and the reader. Secondary plots concern the midlife romance of Miss Dunstable and good Doctor Thorne. Olivia Proudie daughter of the fussy busybody and scold Mrs. Proudie and the uxorious Bishop Proudie weds a clergyman Mr. Tickler who is a widower. Griselda Grantley is courted by the stupid Lord Dumbello who possesses a name and title to the Hartletop lands and fortune. Will she win Lord Lufton or choose Dumbello? All's well that ends well in this classic Trollopian tale. Long before Jan Karon, Anthony Trollope wrote humorous, moving and plot driven tales of the lives of the clergy dealing with real life problems, romance and challenges. In my opinion, an Anthony Trollope novel is a good way to spend a quiet evening before the fireplace. Enjoy this wonderful author and the world he created.

I'm reading the Barset series in order and have not been disappointed yet. Framley Parsonage is substantive, richer than The Warden, more serious than Barchester Towers, similar in much to Doctor Thorne, and slightly more intricate than DT. I enjoyed the introduction of a healthy dose of political gamesmanship in the form of descriptions of the parliamentary machinations and electioneering strategies. One also learns how to conduct financial shennanigans with horses, farmland, and public forests. The characters in FP are textured and almost always believable; there's only a few caricatures here. As always, the Everyman's edition is accompanied by a lucid introduction and helpful timetable.

As a sixty-two year old professor of English literature and a compulsive reader, I have read many, many novels in my life, and most of Trollope's (for they are, indeed, habit-forming), but this one is perhaps my favorite. I have not read it since 1982, but when I open the cover and look at the fly-leaf, I feel the special delight that I felt when I first read it. Like Austen's Emma, it is one of those perfect books you should not miss.

If you shy away from Victorian novels because you had to read A TALE OF TWO CITIES in high school, it is time to give these treasures another try. Admit it, you are a bit older now. So are these books by Dickens, Disraeli, Thackary, Austen, the Bronte sisters, and, yes, my personal favorite, the great man himself, Anthony Trollope. Why read something that was written a century and a half ago? Because Trollope knew more about the human psyche than Freud and Jung put together, and wrote about it not with a clinician's jaundiced eye, but with incredible tenderness and love. And entertainingly, to boot! If you have been reading the Jan Karon novels about life in a small North Carolina highlands town, as it revolves around an Episcopal priest named Father Tim and his colorful parishioners, well!--this is where it all began. A book version of finding the source of the Nile. Trollope began what Karon has revised and restyled so engagingly. Trollope invented the "church and town" novel, with what have become known as his Bartchester Series of novels, all centering around the doings of a fictitious cathedral town and its outlying countryside. Not the first in the series, (it is the fourth but perhaps the best), FRAMLEY PARSONAGE traces the faith, home and political lives of a number of intertwining families. Here you will find love, ambition, political maneuvering, gambling debts, pretension, humility, envy, forgiveness, hate, romance. If it sounds like a slice of modern life-it is. We and the Victorians are so much alike; the human condition does not change. In this delightful mix of clerical, political and romantic intrigue, you will meet everyone from the alarmingly meddlesome bishop's wife, Mrs. Proudie, to the original dizzy blond, Griselda Grantly. All set in the green countryside and the bustling streets of London. The story centers around the bright, popular pastor, Mark Robarts and his charming wife, but it is his sister, Lucy, who will capture your heart as perhaps the loveliest of heroines in any novel. I hope you are intrigued enough to be convinced that there is more to Nineteenth Century British Literature than SILAS MARNER. Moreover, I hope you will read this and the other Trollope works. You may recall that in addition to being one of the most successful and acclaimed novelist of all times, Trollope was also a successful and acclaimed civil servant-his "day job" was with the British postal system-he invented the corner mailbox. His more than 40 novels and outstanding autobiography were written in his very disciplined "spare time" in which he produced a specific number of pages every morning before departing punctually for his office. Not only a genius of time management, Trollope was and is a guardian of the human heart. What? You say you would rather start at the beginning of the Bartchester series? By all means! But if you do not, try FRAMLY PARSONAGE first. Dip your toe in there-for you cannot dip your to

Young clergyman Mark Robarts receives a choice parish, thanks to Lady Lufton, the mother of one of his university friends. However, Robarts, though newly and happily married, is not content to settle into the life of a country minister. Lured by a wealthy and worldly set of new acquaintances, he finds himself pushed into living beyond his means and, worse yet, being held legally responsible for another man's bad debts. Meantime the young Lord Lufton has been smitten by the charms of Robarts' sister Lucy, much to the displeasure of his aristocratic mother. It take a great act of magnanimity on Lucy's part - helping the impoverished Crawley family during a crisis (the Crawleys are more prominent in "The Last Chronicle of Barset") - to finally convince Lady Lufton that Lucy is worthy of her son.This beautifully written novel contrasts the simpler integrity, though sometimes snobbish values, of the old ways with the more meretriciously glamorous lives of a newer society. As usual, Trollope has produced a multitude of characters whose motives are completely credible, and his depiction of the different social groups provides a most vivid kaleidoscope of Victorian life and attitudes. As always, there is nothing outdated in Trollope's sure insight into human nature.