The Warden is the first of the six classic Chronicles of Barsetshire novels, Trollope’s best-loved and most famous work.Trollope conceived the story of the novel in Salisbury, while wandering round the cathedral one midsummer evening in the 1850s. Set in the world of the Victorian professional and landed classes that Trollope portrayed so consummately, the book centers on Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity, whose charitable income far exceeds the purpose for which it was intended. On discovering this, young John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he regards as an abuse of privilege, despite the fact that he is in love with Mr. Harding’s daughter, Eleanor.
The novel was highly topical, for a case regarding the misapplication of church funds was the scandalous subject of contemporary debate. But in common with many other great Victorian novelists, Trollope uses the specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality.