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The Warden
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Warden is the first of the six classic Chronicles of Barsetshire novels, Trollope's best-loved and most famous work.
Critic reviews
- Audie Award Finalist, Classic, 2007
"Critics found The Warden a new voice among novelists; the book was acclaimed as clever, spirited, and promising much for the author's future as a writer of significance."(Donald Smalley, Anthony Trollope: The Critical Heritage)
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The Warden - Chronicles of Barsetshire, Book 1
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Overall
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Performance
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four and a half stars
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Written at the request of Charles Dickens, North and South is a book about rebellion that poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Gaskell expertly blends individual feeling with social concern and her heroine, Margaret Hale, is one of the most original creations of Victorian literature. When Margaret Hale's father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience she is forced to leave her comfortable home in the tranquil countryside of Hampshire....
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Overall
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Honoré de Balzac uses his classic style of detail to describe a most controversial setting in his novel Le Pere Goriot. The story takes place in Paris just after the fall of Napoleon in 1819. The story focuses on three characters, Rastignac, a student who wants to try and make it big in the capital, Vautrin, an interesting and funny character who is also quite mysterious, and the main character, Goriot, that carries a heavy burden that only a loving parent would endure.
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A minor masterpiece
- By Indi Rock on 03-04-18
By: Honoré de Balzac
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The Portrait of a Lady
- By: Henry James
- Narrated by: John Wood
- Length: 23 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to enjoy the freedom that her fortune has opened up and to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors, declaring that she will never marry. It is only when she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the cultivated but worthless Gilbert Osmond that she discovers that wealth is a two-edged sword.
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Highly recommended
- By David on 06-26-10
By: Henry James
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Father Goriot
- By: Honoré de Balzac
- Narrated by: Bill Homewood
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Impoverished young aristocrat Eugene de Rastignac is determined to climb the social ladder and impress himself on Parisian high society. While staying at the Maison Vauquer, a boarding house in Paris's rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he encounters Jean-Joachim Goriot, a retired vermicelli maker who has spent his entire fortune supporting his two daughters. The boarders strike up a friendship and Goriot learns of Rastignac's feelings for his daughter Delphine. He begins to see Rastignac as the ideal son-in-law, and the perfect substitute for Delphine's domineering husband. But Rastignac has other opportunities too....
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Astounding performance
- By Laurence Grey on 04-05-21
By: Honoré de Balzac
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3 Classic Novels
- Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park
- By: Jane Austen
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Giuliano, The Spire
- Length: 36 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the world of Jane Austen, one of the most beloved authors in the English language. Austen's works are known for their wit, social commentary, and romantic storylines that have captivated readers for generations.
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Classic Novels are the best.
- By Maureen Hart on 09-07-23
By: Jane Austen
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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- By: Anne Brontë
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Jenny Agutter
- Length: 16 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Fleeing a disastrous marriage, Helen Huntingdon retreats to the desolate mansion, Wildfell Hall, with her son, Arthur. There, she makes her living as a painter. Finding it difficult to avoid her neighbors, she is soon an object of speculation and gossip. Brontë portrays Helen's eloquent struggle for independence at a time when society defined a married woman as her husband's property.
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Excellent performances of an abridged version
- By LSK on 04-21-19
By: Anne Brontë
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What listeners say about The Warden
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Larbi
- 09-15-07
Delightful Reading of Trollope
I had always intended to read Trollope and never quite made the time. Listening to this engaging narration by Simon Vance made such a pleasure possible while driving to work. Although one must have a taste for much more intricate prose than is characteristic of today's fiction, Vance's interpretation makes all the different characters recognizable and brings out the humor and minute social observation that keeps Trollope's intrigues of small town and ecclesiastical life in England mid-19th Century so enjoyable even today.
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55 people found this helpful
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- Charles Parselle
- 12-22-10
NOT WELL READ
We all know the world is divided into two - those who cannot get enough of Trollope, and those who are somehow defective. That said, I cannot recommend Simon Vance's reading. He is a good nonfiction reader and he can read fiction too, as long as he does get into characters. The problem lies in his hopeless rendition of female voices, and he is not that great at men's voices either, so it rather spoils the telling. Sorry, Simon. I whole-heartedly recommend Timothy West's readings, who nails it every time.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Deborah
- 01-02-12
The Series Begins . . .
The first of the Barchester series, The Warden seems obviously designed to set up the next five novels. It's fine on its own, but not the best of Trollope by any means. Mr. Harding, warden of an almshouse for 12 elderly disabled men, finds himself the target of a lawsuit promoted by his daughter's admirer. The claim is that the benefactor's will did not mean for the church to use the bequest to fund a warden, but that it was meant to go directly to the 12 men. Complicating the situation is the fact that the archdeacon, married to Harding's elder daughter, insists on fighting the suit, which gets nasty in the public press. The plot focuses on how Mr. Harding, a genuinely kind and good man, deals with the stress and his own conscience, and how his daughter Eleanor struggles between her fierce love for her father and her growing affection for John Bull, the lawyer behind the lawsuit.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Barbara Dumas
- 01-30-12
Simon Vance reading the Chronicles: Perfection
Would you listen to The Warden again? Why?
I love the Chronicles of Barsetshire, and Simon Vance is the perfect reader for them. I have listened to The Warden (a very good book), Barchester Towers (one of the best books of all time), and I am currently about half way through Dr. Thorne.
In The Warden, it was great listening again to Trollope's description of the press - and the politicians - as his insights are all still relevant today. It is, perhaps, a pity that they sound so fresh, but at the same time - it makes one ponder the fact that we are more often led by reporters, rather than educated by them.
What a great book!
Who was your favorite character and why?
The Warden Harding is a man of incredible ethics, and in today's world of ethical rationalizations, he sounds weak.
Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No one is better to take you on a visit back to through Trollope's classics than Simon Vance. This reading is everything I would expect from Simon - in fact, I decided to re-visit this series when I discovered that Simon Vance was reading it.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Ilana
- 09-04-12
May prove challenging to contemporary readers
A clergyman, Mr. Harding, is accused of abusing of his privilege of receiving a high income for very little work, and that church funds are being misappropriated; both accusations made by a young reformer who also happens to be in love with the clergyman's daughter, and influences those who are directly under the clergyman's protection and benefiting from his generosity. Mr. Harding is well-loved by all, and the combination of the savage media outcry that follows and his unimpeachable honesty pushes him to take actions which are against his best interests. Can't say I absolutely loved this novel, but I read it in the context of a tutored read on LibraryThing and the two tutors had a wealth of knowledge to share about the clergy and moral attitudes of the time and so on, which certainly helped this modern reader appreciate the story a lot more than I would have without my mentors. That being said, I look forward to listening to the next book in the series, Barchester Towers.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Jessica
- 03-15-12
Terrible reading of a great book!
How could the performance have been better?
I love Trollope and am usually not at all picky about the performances of recorded books, but I found this reading of The Warden unbearable! Simon Vance adopts a strange, high-pitched, affected tone of voice every time he reads the women's lines that makes Trollope's female characters come across as gross caricatures. The gentle but always intelligent Eleanor Harding sounded like a half-witted flirt, Mrs. Grantly sounded like a snooty society matron instead of a sensible clergyman's wife, and the love scenes were absolutely painful! Mr. Vance is a very good reader generally, and if only he could have rendered the female characters in a more natural tone of voice this would have been a fine and worthy reading. I switched to the Timothy West reading for the remainder of the Basetshire Chronicles, and am so glad I did. I really don't think I could have stood a simpering Mary Thorne!!
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5 people found this helpful
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- T.
- 02-26-12
Heartbreakingly Good
This novel was painful to read, as the injustice of it all is so clear, and so is the inevitability. But, like all such narratives, it is also comforting to be reminded that we are not the only ones to encounter injustice, and the model that the warden offers, as far as dealing with a moral question with honor is concerned, is a treasure to behold. Simon Vance is, as usual, a jewel of a narrator. I can't believe I haven't read Trollope until now. I'll certainly be reading more of his works in the future.
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- Jefferson
- 04-23-12
The Difficulty of Finding & Doing the Right Thing
Poor meek, mild, and middle-aged Mr. Septimus Harding! The warden of small Hiram's Hospital (almshouse) in Anthony Trollope's first Barchester novel, The Warden (1855), Mr. Harding sees to the food and lodging of twelve poor old men and gives them their daily allowance of one shilling and fourpence (to which he has added out of his own money twopence per day). As a stipend for his post, he receives 800 pounds per year from Hiram's fund. He has enjoyed seeing to the physical and spiritual needs of the old men, playing melancholy and lovely violoncello music, and living comfortably with his younger daughter Eleanor in the fine house and beautiful garden that go with the wardenship. His placid life is rudely disrupted when a young doctor named John Bold, a well-meaning, self-righteous, and reckless reformer, champions the cause of the twelve old men, whom he sees as being cheated out of their just amount of money by Hiram's Hospital and the corrupt Church of England.
Anthony Trollope tells an absorbing story featuring a small cast of very human characters and themes extending beyond the central legal case to the overly influential role of the mass media in modern society, the ambiguous motives and results of reform-minded people, the human tendency to never be satisfied with what one has, the difficulty of doing the right thing when dealing with people and money, and the nature of friendship. And yet I wonder whether Trollope need go into such lengthy detail in his satire of the pamphlets of Dr. Pessimist Anticant (AKA Thomas Carlyle) or his critical description of the children of Mr. Harding's son-in-law. And although I like Trollope's conviction that no one is all evil or all good, I wonder if his critique of reformers (including Mr. Popular Sentiment, AKA Charles Dickens) is completely fair or warranted, trenchant though it is.
Simon Vance gives his usual smooth and professional reading, but his young female characters (as they often do in his other books) sound artificially high-pitched and nasal. His Eleanor is almost insufferable when she (Vance) says, "Oh, paPA!"
But I did care very much about Mr. Septimus Harding and his plight! And I enjoyed and or was moved by most of The Warden. I recommend it to anyone who likes the work of Dickens and who wants to read one of his contemporaries who has a different approach to human nature, social problems, and fiction.
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- Scrapbot
- 07-25-12
Boring!
I kept waiting for the story to start and then it was over. I think it was to high-brow for me!
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Overall
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- Damian
- 04-28-18
Every bit the equal of Dickens,
In presenting the majesty and grandeur of the English language, but without the sometimes heavy moral bludgeoning of the Great Liberal Reformer, Instead, this more subtle tale is presented with a sardonic flair that reminded me of Americans Clemens and Bierce and even Tobias Smollet’s Incomparable translation of Cervantes. I just hate that I will now have to spend more credits on yet another Master of English Letters when Hardy, Dickens, Fielding and others are already queued up in my Wish List. Superior job by Simon Vance!.
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