[Barset]

John Bold was impetuous, ambitious and naive. I don't think he was mean or bad. He was good-looking and loved Eleanor.

"The Warden" is probably the most exasperating of the church novels, for me, anyway. My husband won't hear any criticism of any of the novels.

[AnAmericanMother]

I didn't mean that John Bold was a bad man - I agree that he was naive and he certainly set into motion things (like the news media) that he didn't intend. I just didn't see Eleanor as she was developed in the later novels to be a likely match for him, or him for her.

The Warden is so much shorter than the others that I find it hard to compare with Barchester Towers or The Last Chronicle, etc. I think Framley Parsonage is probably my favorite of the Barsetshire novels, simple because the character of Mr. Crawley is so fascinating. Apparently he was patterned largely on Trollope's own unfortunate father.

Does your husband brook any criticism of the later novels (e.g. The Way We Live Now?) Surely he admits that that awful novel about the British colony that adopted euthanasia (The Fixed Period) is pretty bad?