After the death of old Dr Grantly, a bitter struggle begins over who will succeed him as Bishop of Barchester. And when the decision is finally made to appoint the evangelical Dr Proudie, rather than the son of the old bishop, Archdeacon Grantly, resentment and suspicion threaten to cause deep divisions within the diocese.
The social and financial problems of class-ridden Victorian England are depicted vividly and, against this background, the romance of the aristocratic Egremont and Sybil, the daughter of a poor Charist leader, develops.
Defoe to the Victorians
The development of the English novel is traced in an examination of authors including Richardson, Sterne, Austen, Dickens, the Brontes, and Hardy as well as in discussion of such themes as quixotic and picaresque fiction