David Skilton Knihy

Barchester towers is the story of the church war that takes place between Mrs Proudie, the wife of Barsetshire's newly installed bishop, and Mr Slope, the sly, scheming chaplain.

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.

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