The very title Barchester Towers is evocative of everything Trollopian. It is the second of the six Barsetshire novels, and follows on directly from The Warden. In it, we are introduced to the ineffectual new Bishop of Barchester and his wife, the frightful Mrs Proudie, who is one of Trollope's most enduring characters. There is the bishop's chaplain, the oleaginous Obadiah Slope, the worldly Stanhope family, as well as friends from the earlier book, Septimus Harding, Eleanor Bold and the outrageous Archdeacon Grantly.
Joanna Trollope introduces her forbear's masterpiece of intrigue, treachery, hypocrisy and ambition in which Anthony Trollope displays his command of comedy and ironic wit.