Last Chronicle of Barset: v. 1 (Hardcover)

But the plot construction is poor and the book feels bloated, overwritten, about 100 pages too long. The nominal love interests, Grace and Henry, are just ghosts of characters, and to make his plot work Trollope resorts to the embarrassing tactic of keeping the parties who will instantly unravel it off-stage and incommunicado for hundreds of pages. Meanwhile we are treated to repetitive scenes that show us the frustrating, self-pitying Josiah Crawley being frustrating and self-pitying.

THE LAST CHRONICLE's chief pleasure -- and for a Trollope reader it is a very great pleasure -- is in seeing all our old favorites from the previous novels respond to the Crawleys' predicament, and in having Lily's and Johnny's story told to its end, replete with the new cast of characters Johnny has taken up. I would not have missed it. I only wish Trollope had had a strong-minded editor by.

Of special merit, amongst his huge output, are the so-called Barsetshire ("clerical") novels, and the so-called Palliser ("political") novels. Of the former, the last and longest is "The Last Chronicle of Barset". Not only are there fresh concerns, complications and current affairs introduced here, but there are also fond and final appearances of people and places encountered in the earlier Barsetshire novels. Everybody's favourite literary virago, Mrs Proudie, is again denouncing and dominating everybody. Trollope even contrives to create a character who has the temerity to say to her, "Peace, Woman!"

There are the innumerable characters of marriageable age, whose names are perhaps more memorable than their characters, whose charming dialogues and relationship problems are deftly laid out and interwoven. Above all, there is master story-teller Anthony Trollope, admitting finally that for him Barset has been a real place, a place where he as been induced to wander too long by his "love of old friendships, and by the sweetness of old faces".

Superb TV and radio adaptations of Trollope's Barsetshire novels have appeared in recent years. His novels read aloud well, too, and audio cassette readings, some of them unabridged, can provide endless hours of rich listening pleasure.

This novel is also one of the darkest that Trollope wrote. The moral dilemma in which Crawley finds himself would seem to belong more readily to the world of Dostoevsky than Victorian England.

Can this novel be read on its own, without reading the novels that precede it? Yes, but I do feel that it is best read after working through the other books in the series first. This is hardly an unfortunate situation, since all the books in the series are superb (with the exception of the first novel, THE WARDEN, which, while nice, is merely a prelude to the far superior five novels that came after it). Many of the characters in THE LAST CHRONICLE appeared first as characters in the other novels, and the central character of the book, Crawley, himself appeared earlier.

Trollope is...one of the most entertaining writers the English language has produced. At this point I have read around 20 of his novels, and fully intend to read more. But of all his books, this one might be his finest. The only two that I feel are close to the same level are his incredible books THE WAY WE LIVE NOW and HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT (possibly the finest work on excessive jealousy since OTHELLO). Anyone who loves the English novel owes it to him or herself to read as many of these volumes as possible. My recommendation would be to read first the six novels in the Barsetshire Chronicles, and then to move on to the other two novels I mentioned. If still hooked, then try his other major series of novels, variously known as the Political novels or the Palliser novels or the Parliamentary novels, which begin with CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?