Barchester Towers

By: Anthony Trollope

Narrated by: Timothy West

Length: 19 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Exclusively from Audible

Barchester Towers is the second of six in the series known as Chronicles of Barsetshire. Narrator Timothy West brings life to the story, begun in The Warden, of Mr. Harding and his daughter Eleanor. It chronicles the struggle for control of the English diocese of Barchester after one Bishop dies and a new one is selected.

The rather incompetent new Bishop, Dr. Proudie, led by his formidable wife, and ambitious chaplain, Mr. Slope, begin to create turmoil with their desire to shake up the church establishment in Barchester with new policies and practices. However, the established clergy of Barchester, led by Archdeacon Grantly, the son of the previous Bishop, are equally determined to keep things just as they've always been. Archdeacon Grantly declares 'War, war, internecine war!' on Bishop Proudie, but who will win the battle between the archdeacon, the bishop, Mr. Slope, and Mrs. Proudie?

The Guardian included Barchester Towers in its list of '1000 novels everyone must read'. Full of humour and extraordinary characters, it is no wonder it continues to be Trollope's best-loved work.

Narrator Biography

Timothy West is prolific in film, television, theatre and audiobooks. He has narrated a number of Anthony Trollope’s classics, including the six Chronicles of Barsetshire and The Pallisers series. He has also narrated volumes of Simon Schama’s A History of Britain and John Mortimer’s Rumpole on Trial. Timothy West’s theatre roles include King Lear, The Vote, Uncle Vanya, A Number, Quarter, and Coriolanus. His films include Ever After, Joan Of Arc, Endgame, Iris, The Day of the Jackal. On television, Timothy has appeared in Great Canal Journeys, Last Tango in Halifax and Bleak House.

Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"It was in [Trollope's] fifth book, Barchester Towers, in which he blended his satirical gifts with disdain for evangelical puritanism, that he found himself." ( Washington Post)

What a treat!

Beautiful, gentle story! Trollope treats his protagonists with gentle, kindly humor. Wonderful narration! What a treat!

The best narrator as ever was

I can’t imagine a narrator better suited to this delightfully droll novel than Timothy West.

Beautiful book with a perfect narrator

This is a fantastic audiobook. I’ve read this book many times, but hearing it read by this fine actor was a whole different experience. There’s so much humor that I might’ve missed when I just read it myself.

Superb reading!

My favorite Trollope novel read to perfection! The reading brought the characters to life & was so vivid ! Thank you!

Content to be Human

"Till we can become divine we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower."
- Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope

This was lovely. Barchester Towers in probably Trollope's best known and most popular work. It could stand alone, but really should be read after Warden as book 2 in the Barsetshire Series (six books). Trollope's prose is beautiful but his characters (good and bad; pretty and plain) are sketched with such nuance and understanding that two books in I feel like many of them are family.

This year, I committed to reading the six novels in the Chronicles of Barsetshire and the six novels that compose his Palliser series. After finishing book two, however, I'm about read to commit to reading all 47 of his novels PLUS his autobiography. I surprised my wife by joining The Trollope Society last night (£36) and feel it is inevitable that one of these days I'm going to have to explain to my lovely wife, my partner, my soul why 47 books just came here from London (you can order a very nice set of Trollope's complete novels for £950 + £50 for shipping to the US). It really does seem almost as inevitable as entropy. Unstoppable really. It might not be this week, this month, or this year, but it just seems easier to bite it in one chunk than collect these novels higgledy-piggledy.

A complete delight

Barchester Towers could have been written by Jane Austen's granddaughter! It is filled with janeisms but set some 50 years later. Trollope has the observations, the wit and the overall gentle and genteel comedy of manners and misunderstandings that made Jane Austen's books so loved.

Even the characters are updated Austen characters, some with wonderful humorous names such as a father of 14 children being called Mr Quiverful and the social climbing farmers the Lookalofts. My personal favourate was Mr Slope who challenges Mr Collins from Pride and Prejudice as the most odious curate ever!

I love the direct appeals Trollope makes to the reader - it brings you right into the action and Timothy West is absolutely perfect as the narrator. I believe, some narrators are born to read a particular author, Juliet Stevenson is perfect for Jane Austen as Timothy West is for Trollope. A match made in heaven!

At the end of The Warden I wasn't sure about Trollope and not sure if the Barsetshire series had grabbed me. I can tell you now at the end of Barchester Towers that I am totally smitten with it - I have already downloaded the next in the chronicles and can't wait to start it.

Just plain delightful.

Timothy West was the perfect narrator for this charming and witty novel. He drew out the delicious wordplay and the biting satire. I love the way the narrator breaks the fourth wall, speaking to the reader about the conventions of novelistic form he's about to either break or grudgingly adhere to. I loved The Warden as well, but I think this is a fuller, more fleshed out story. Top notch and sparkling all the way through.

What larks!

Wicked and satisfying portrait of human nature. Will not be understood by anyone under 40.

good novel; stunning narration

enjoyed the novel a lot although it begins to drag a little once you see where it is heading. But Timothy West's narration is just extraordinary, astonishingly brilliant. There are lots of truly great readers for Audible but of those I have heard he is, at least for a book of this type, in a class of his own.

Just delightful!

This book has made me a Trollope fan. The performance is perfection. I love everything about it.