The Warden is the first of Victorian author Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles, set in the fictional cathedral town of Barchester and in the surrounding county of Barsetshire. “Let us presume that Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England, more remarkable for the beauty of its cathedral and the antiquity of its monuments than for any commercial prosperity; that the west end of Barchester is the cathedral close, and that the aristocracy of Barchester are the bishop, dean, and canons, with their respective wives and daughters.”

Mr. Harding is the warden of a small hospital, or charitable nursing home, housing twelve indigent old men and he is also the precentor (song leader) at the cathedral. The Warden’s good friend is the Bishop of Barchester, and the Warden’s son-in-law is the bishop’s son, Dr. Theophilus Grantly, archdeacon of Barchester. There are a few other major characters in this saga of the rise and fall Warden Harding: the warden’s two daughters, Susan and Eleanor, and Dr. John Bold, Eleanor’s would-be suitor.

I won’t go into the intricacies of the plot of the novel, but it is reminiscent of the politics surrounding the cost and color of the church carpet or the salary of the assistant pastor in a Baptist church. Being Baptist myself, not Anglican, those are the analogies that came to mind. All sorts of comings and goings and arguments and resolutions take place, all revolving around the Warden and his income arising from the wardenship of the hospital. Some think he is entitled to his eight hundred pounds per annum, and others emphatically think not.

And so the novel goes. It does seem to be a rather petty question upon which to hang an entire novel, but it shows the great consequences of what often amount to petty controversies. These little questions and disagreements do indeed change the course of a person’s life, sometimes of many people’s lives. And Mr. Trollope excels at showing just how complicated and consequential a small controversy can become.

Along the way, Trollope takes the time to insert both humor and social commentary into a sharply drawn portrait of a quiet cathedral town and its inhabitants. Archdeacon Grantly is the most influential and respected man in the cathedral close, who “strikes awe into the young hearts of Barchester, and absolutely cows the whole parish.” Nevertheless, he becomes “an ordinary man” when his wife tells him what’s what in the confines of their episcopal bedroom. Parliament is considering a law, a law that will never be passed, to order “the bodily searching of nuns for jesuitical symbols by aged clergymen. The bill is taken up solely for the underhanded purpose of setting the Irish Protestants and the Irish Catholics in Parliament at odds with one another. Journalist Tom Towers writes scurrilous gossip in the newspaper called The Jupiter, and he thinks himself the king of the world, with more secret power than the politicians, the clergy, and royalty all combined.The humor is somewhat subtle, but so well written that I couldn’t help but laugh and shake my head in agreement with Trollope’s insightful portraits of human foibles.

I recommend The Warden, and Trollope’s 46 other books, to slow you down and give you opportunity to look carefully at the follies and endearing qualities of our fellow humans. Other than Jane Austen, no one shows the difficulties and the comedy of the human condition in miniature, so to speak, as well as Trollope.