Where to Start with Anthony Trollope | Trollope Thursday

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Right, so hello and welcome back to Books and Things and welcome to another video and welcome to another Trollope Thursday. Today I'm going to be talking about good places to start with the works of Anthony Trollope.

[00:00:17]So hello, if you are new here and you don't know who I am, I am Katie. I am an author and a booktuber and I love to read and I love Victorian literature.

[00:00:26]And if you don't know who Anthony Trollope is, he was a really fantastic Victorian novelist who wrote 47 novels, all of which I have now read. I think he's a wonderful, wonderful writer, one of my absolute favorite novelists, probably my favorite novelist joint with Charles Dickens. He is an absolutely incredible author that I highly recommend giving a try. And if you are thinking of getting into the works of Anthony Trollope, it might be a bit daunting and difficult to know where to start because as I said, he wrote 47 novels. I think when an author wrote as many books as Anthony Trollope did, it can be quite difficult to know where to start with their work. And I think this issue is sort of exacerbated with Anthony Trollope by the fact that his most famous work of literature is a six-book series, The Barchester Chronicles. The thing about Anthony Trollope you are most likely to have heard about is a six-book series, which can feel like a very daunting place to start. And I also think that for an author like Anthony Trollope, there are a lot of different places you could start. You know, if someone asked me where to start with the works of Charles Dickens, I basically will definitively say start with Great Expectations. Yes, you could start with another Dickens book and really love it, but I think Great Expectations is probably the best place to start with Charles Dickens.

[00:01:38]It's one of his two novels that are in the first person, making it much easier to follow and I think it's a wonderful book. It's also slightly less long than some of his other books. Like in general, if you want to know where to start with Charles Dickens, start with Great Expectations. Maybe A Christmas Carol if you want something really short, but basically I have like one recommendation of where to start.

[00:01:54]Whereas when it comes to Anthony Trollope, he wrote a lot and there are a lot of different places you could start with his work. So I thought today what I would do is talk through sort of 10 different places that you could start with Anthony Trollope's work, depending on what you're looking for. This I would say is probably my most requested video ever, so I hope that this is useful. I am also going to briefly talk at the end of the video about where not to start with Anthony Trollope and a few of his books that I wouldn't recommend going into at the beginning. I am also going to do another video at some point in the next few weeks/months, um, recommending Anthony Trollope books based on your other taste in Victorian literature, saying, you know, if you like Thomas Hardy, try this Anthony Trollope novel. If you like Charles Dickens, try this Anthony Trollope novel, etc. So that might also be a useful video, um, in terms of where to start with Trollope. One other thing I did want to say before I get properly into the books is that over the past couple months, I have run a survey and polled over 200 readers about their taste in Anthony Trollope, um, and what their favorite books are by Anthony Trollope, where they think is a good place to start with Anthony Trollope, various other Trollope related questions, etc. And I've been through the sort of suggestions that people gave of good places to start with Anthony Trollope, um, and that has kind of influenced this video in some places as well. And some of those responses kind of affirmed books that I would already naturally recommend as good places to start with Anthony Trollope and some of those answers kind of gave me new suggestions. So yes, right, let's actually get into the books. So the obvious place in some ways to start with Anthony Trollope and the place that many, many people start with Anthony Trollope is with The Barchester Chronicles. As I said, this is probably Anthony Trollope's most famous work. It is a series of six interconnected novels. They don't all follow all of the same characters. Some of them start with a new set of characters and have a new main plot, but some of the books are much more direct sequels than others and characters from earlier books in the series will appear in later books in the series. I am at some point in the next few weeks going to make a video explaining the two big series Anthony Trollope wrote and also some of the smaller connections between his other novels because I thought that might be helpful. But for now, I will just say that The Barchester Chronicles are all set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, um, and a lot of the books revolve around church politics and sort of small town or rural life and they are marvelous. They are my favorite book series ever and they are fantastic and they are where a lot of people start with Anthony Trollope. If you do want to start with The Barchester Chronicles, I would highly recommend reading book one and two back-to-back. Book one is The Warden, book two is Barchester Towers.

[00:04:26]These are directly connected. Barchester Towers follows all of the characters in The Warden plus some new characters, um, but it is a direct sequel to The Warden.

[00:04:36]So don't read Barchester Towers without reading The Warden first and I would highly recommend reading them back-to-back, like almost as if they were one book. Partly because they are directly connected, partly because The Warden is quite short and Barchester Towers is less so, so together they sort of make a quite long Victorian novel, um, and also because generally Barchester Towers is much more like beloved than The Warden. I love The Warden. I think The Warden's a really, really interesting, but there is the chance that you might read The Warden and be like, "Yeah, that was fine, but I'm not that excited." Whereas if you read The Warden and Barchester Towers back-to-back, you will have a great time. For an illustrative example of that, I asked the people who filled in my Anthony Trollope survey, um, to rate the Anthony Trollope books they had read so far and of the 202 people who'd read The Warden, 60 people gave it five stars. But of the 191 people who had read Barchester Towers, 125 gave it five stars. And obviously this survey was like skewed towards people who like Anthony Trollope because they would be more likely to answer a survey about Anthony Trollope.

[00:05:37]But still, I do think that tells you how beloved Barchester Towers is. It is a wonderful novel. So is The Warden, but I would say The Warden is a four-star read for me and The Barchester Towers is like a five-star, one of my absolute favorite Anthony Trollope books for me. And I think if you read them back-to-back, it will give you a better taste of Anthony Trollope, um, and I think you're more likely to get into him. While we're talking about The Barchester Chronicles, people often ask me whether you have to read them in order and I very, very strongly feel that you should read them in order. And I slightly less strongly, but a bit, feel that you should read The Barchester Chronicles first and then The Pallisers, um, which is Anthony Trollope's other six-book series, which is another six-book series of interconnected novels, but they also slightly connect with The Barchester Chronicles and you are introduced to some of the characters in The Pallisers towards the end of The Barchester Chronicles. As I said, I feel less strongly that you should read The Pallisers after The Barchester Chronicles, but I do feel very strongly that you should read The Barchester Chronicles in order because the books have a lot of connections between them and your reading experience and enjoyment of the books will be hugely enriched by reading them in order. I sometimes hear people suggest that you start with a later book in the series because The Warden has a lot of church politics in and that doesn't necessarily gel with everyone. But I do very strongly feel that your reading experience of every single book in The Barchester Chronicles will be so much better if you read them in order because there are so many links between them and you will spoil previous books in the series if you read the later ones first. If you feel a bit daunted by the prospect of picking up a Victorian novel that has quite a lot in it about church politics, then I would say don't start with a later book in The Barchester Chronicles, just start with a different novel by Anthony Trollope, just start with one of his standalones.

[00:07:21]I'll give some suggestions in a second.

[00:07:24]As I said, I think that starting with The Warden and Barchester Towers back-to-back is a decent place to start with Anthony Trollope and I would say that is especially the case if you are someone who already reads quite a lot of Victorian literature because I think if you're already relatively familiar with Victorian literature and the Victorian period, you're less likely to find the church politics dry or daunting. Um, I think if you read less Victorian literature, then there might be a better place to start than these two. The other benefit I suppose of starting with The Barchester Chronicles is that they are his most famous work, so there's lots of editions, they're widely in print, there's audiobooks available, um, there's also some adaptations. So there is an adaptation called The Barchester Chronicles, which is just of The Warden and Barchester Towers from the 1980s and then there's also an adaptation of Doctor Thorne, the third book from 2016.

[00:08:12]So if you're someone who likes to watch an adaptation, that might also be useful to know. And because they are his most famous books, there will be, you know, more videos about them on BookTube, etc. I feel like I've been talking about these two books for a really long time without talking about the premise at all. The Warden is about a clergyman who, um, is the warden of, um, effectively an old people's home and there is some sort of legal disputes and challenge to the way that the funds of the hospital are divided and we are following this man's sort of moral dilemma, um, and his relationship with his daughter and various people around him. As I said, there is quite a lot of church politics in this book, um, some people find this a less exciting Anthony Trollope novel. I personally really like it, but if you feel like you want a bit more drama for your first Anthony Trollope book, then you could start with one of Anthony Trollope's standalones instead. The rest of my recommendations are all standalones, not part of series, um, and my first two are recommendations of where to start with Anthony Trollope if you are not put off by a long novel. I would highly recommend starting with The Way We Live Now. I think that in a way this is the absolute best place to start with Anthony Trollope, but it is 800 pages long. So if you don't like an 800-page novel, it might not be the right place for you to start, but if you like a long book, this is really, really fantastic.

[00:09:40]In my where to start with Anthony Trollope survey question, um, The Warden or like The Barchester Chronicles in general came number one with the most recommendations from people of where to start and The Way We Live Now came number two. This is probably where I started. I can't don't remember. The next book that I'm going to talk about is the other place I might have started.

[00:09:59]I read both of those books as a teenager and I don't really remember which one I read first. But, The Way We Live Now was either the first or second Anthony Trollope book that I read um and I think it is a wonderful place to start with his books. This is a wonderful, compelling, rich Victorian novel following a lot of different characters over a lot of different plot lines, but everyone kind of revolves around this man called Mr. Melmoth who has turned up in London with a massive fortune. No one really knows where he's come from or how he made his money, but everyone wants a piece of the pie. And you're basically following everyone surrounding this man um and how money makes people behave.

[00:10:36]It's a book about money and class and respectability and love and unrequited love and um people behaving badly um and it's just so good. This is either my favorite or my second favorite Anthony Trollope novel and my other absolute favorite is the fifth book in the Barsetshire Chronicles. So, if you want to start with an absolute favorite of mine, start with The Way We Live Now. It is so good and it is a very, very beloved book. Um in my Anthony Trollope survey, out of the 138 people who had read The Way We Live Now, 104 gave it five stars. That is a very high percentage of five stars.

[00:11:13]We had this as the group read for Victober which is a Victorian literature read-a-thon that takes place every year and I know that a lot of people taking part in that group read had never read Anthony Trollope before and read this and loved it. I think back on this is like one of our most successful Victober group reads because of how many people really, really enjoyed it and I genuinely think it's a great place to start with his work as long as you don't mind a long book. This is also one of his most famous books, so it is very widely accessible. There are lots of editions, it's still in print. Um there's audio books available, too. And there's a TV adaptation from 2001 which is really good and I would recommend if that's a useful way for you to get into it. I would just highly, highly recommend The Way We Live Now. As I said, on the longer side, but it's so good. It's so, so very good indeed. Then I have another very lengthy, but absolutely magnificent Anthony Trollope standalone to recommend and that is He Knew He Was Right. This is the other place I might have started with Anthony Trollope myself. I really don't remember as a teenager whether I read He Knew He Was Right or The Way We Live Now first, but I read them both as a teenager and loved them both. I've reread both of them since. Um The Way We Live Now I've read several times and He Knew He Was Right I reread last year um and just absolutely fell in love with it all over again. It's an incredible novel. And again, it is one of his better known books, so there's editions in print, there's audio books available, there's a great adaptation from 2004. I think it's one of his absolute best books, so that is, you know, another good reason to start with it. A slightly darker Anthony Trollope book, I would say. So, if you like um Victorian authors like Thomas Hardy or George Gissing, then this might be the way in for you. This um follows various plot lines and various characters, but the sort of central plot line um follows a young married couple who are recently married who come to some kind of misunderstanding and their marriage starts to break apart. And basically, the novel is about the breakdown of their marriage and the complexities of a marriage breaking down in the Victorian period with the social stigma um and complicated social setup of the time. And then there's also various subplots um including some of my absolute favorite characters. Is the elderly Miss Dunbury my favorite character in all of Anthony Trollope?

[00:13:23]Maybe. She is wonderful. This is a truly incredible book and I would highly, highly recommend it as a place to start with Anthony Trollope, as a place to continue with Anthony Trollope, as just one of his best books. But, if you're sat there thinking that you would neither like to commit to a six-book series nor a 800 to 1,000 page novel, don't worry. I do have some shorter Anthony Trollope standalones to recommend to you. And the first is Doctor Thorne's School. This is a really short Anthony Trollope, it's only 200 pages, so it's a really good introduction um and I find it a really interesting novel. It's quite a different Victorian novel and it's definitely a personal favorite of mine.

[00:13:58]This book um focuses on a man who runs a school, Doctor Thorne um and what happens when he discovers that one of the um teachers on his staff has a secret and it's about his dilemma over what to do about this secret. And I think this book really captures sort of how Anthony Trollope um looks at moral dilemmas and at Victorian society, the way he uses social criticism in his books. And I think it's a really, really fantastic novel. I'd really like to reread it actually cuz it's been quite a few years since I read it. This book is also readily available, it's still in print. Here's the Penguin edition of it and there's also an audio book narrated by Timothy West. I haven't listened to that specific audio book, but I have listened to other Anthony Trollope books narrated by Timothy West and he's great.

[00:14:41]So, it is one of his books that is easier to get your hands on. In my Anthony Trollope survey, this book came in third in the like where to start question um with quite a lot of people suggesting this as a great place to start with Anthony Trollope. But, I will also say that um one person left a comment saying that they had started with Doctor Thorne's School and it really didn't work for them. I would probably say that if you are relatively familiar with Victorian literature already and you've read lots of other Victorian books, then this is definitely a great place to start with Trollope. If you are less familiar with Victorian literature and read less of it, then maybe there are other places that might be a better place to start. I'll talk about some in a second because it is a book that has quite a lot of like social criticism in um and therefore a knowledge of Victorian like social conventions is probably useful for it.

[00:15:29]But, if you are someone who likes the Victorian period and likes Victorian literature, then I think this is a great place to start with Anthony Trollope.

[00:15:35]Moving on to some other Anthony Trollope standalones. Um one novel that I would really recommend as a good place to start with his work is The Vicar of Bullhampton. This is not like a really short book, but nor is it a really long book. And I think it is a very representative novel of his work. Um so, it's a great introduction to his work and I think it is also a very good introduction to his work if you're less familiar with Victorian literature and also possibly a good introduction to his work if you're looking for like a little more drama because one of the plot lines is quite dramatic. There's sort of three um plot strands to the book, one of which is a love story with a love triangle which Anthony Trollope likes to write about. One strand um deals with some sort of church politics and disputes over local land. And then the third plot strand um deals with something darker and I probably won't say any more because of spoilers um but, I think The Vicar of Bullhampton with those three plot strands kind of like introduces you to quite a lot of different things Anthony Trollope tends to deal with. It is slightly harder to get your hands on than say Doctor Thorne's School or The Way We Live Now or the Barsetshire Chronicles. There aren't many editions in print um so, an ebook might be your best bet, although there is an audio book narrated by Peter Newcome Joy which is really good. That's how I read The Vicar of Bullhampton and I really enjoyed that audio book. Then another standalone that I would really recommend as a good introduction to his work is The Claverings. Again, I think this is probably a similar length to The Vicar of Bullhampton, not really short, not that long. And it is again quite representative of his work in some ways um and I also think it's a very accessible Trollope in that like it gets into the story right away. The first chapter is like a dialogue between two characters um and you kind of get right into the meat of things in The Claverings which I really like. So, I think it's a really good introduction to his work and also probably like The Vicar of Bullhampton a better introduction than Doctor Thorne's School if you're less familiar with Victorian literature. The Claverings is about a young man called Harry Clavering. At the beginning of the book, we learn that he has been in love with someone called Julia. She is in love with him, too um but she's decided that Harry isn't wealthy or grand enough for her. She goes off to marry an earl. Harry is initially devastated, but he ends up sort of falling in love again pretty quickly. And then later on, Julia comes back into his life. And it's just a really, really great Anthony Trollope novel um and I think it introduces you to some of the things Anthony Trollope does really well including love triangles and sort of foolish young men who keep letting themselves down. And yeah, I think it's a really wonderful novel. I'm actually rereading The Claverings at the moment and I'm just really, really enjoying it. It's one of my favorite Trollope's. Like like The Vicar of Bullhampton, The Claverings isn't like widely available in print now, so again an ebook might be your best bet, but there is an audio book.

[00:18:18]There's an audio book narrated by Nigel Paterson um which I'm listening to at the moment and really enjoying. It's also a book that like has been more in print previously, so you may have luck finding it in libraries or charity shops, especially if you're in the UK.

[00:18:31]Um I read The Claverings physically the first time having got the book out of my local library um and that is true for quite a lot of Anthony Trollope books that are no longer widely in print and available from bookshops. You might find them in libraries or in charity shops.

[00:18:45]Another standalone you might want to start with is this, The Belton Estate.

[00:18:49]This is another slightly shorter one. I think it's sort of 350 pages um and it is quite a like sort of focused novel.

[00:18:58]Um it's mostly following sort of one plot rather than lots of different plots. Which, you know, might make it a slightly more accessible entry point.

[00:19:05]This novel also sort of introduces you to a few things Anthony Trollope deals with in quite a lot of his books. There is a love triangle, there is a sort of um conversation around inheritance and who gets to inherit land. And I think it's a really readable, really enjoyable novel. And I think it probably is one of those books that is a decent introduction to his work even if you are not super familiar with Victorian literature. And I also like know anecdotally that The Belton Estate is a novel that has worked for some people for whom not every Anthony Trollope novel works. Again, this one isn't really widely in print and I don't think there's a audio book that's easy to find for this, but are ebooks available and it has been in print previously, so I initially got it out of my library um and now I own a nice um folio edition from the '90s. If you are in the UK and you go into an Oxfam bookshop or any kind of second-hand bookshop or charity shop, um, you may well find some Anthony Trollope Folio Society editions from the '90s.

[00:20:02]They obviously produced a lot of them and many of them have ended up in charity shops. Every time I go into an Oxfam bookshop, I find one of these um and I often buy them and they are really lovely editions as well. So, I was very pleased to find The Belton Estate a little while ago. Then another really wonderful standalone that could be a good entry way into Anthony Trollope's work is Miss Mackenzie. This is probably a similar length to The Belton Estate, I think, and it is a pretty focused novel, um, that I think shows you well how Anthony Trollope sometimes sort of pushes narrative convention, um, and likes to write about different things that not every Victorian writer is writing about. Miss Mackenzie is the story of a 35-year-old woman, um, who's unmarried, has never sort of had any possibilities of marriage, but after her brother's death, she inherits quite a lot of money and begins to attract suitors. If you read quite a lot of Victorian literature, you will be aware that most heroines in Victorian literature tend to be sort of between the ages of 17 and 25, if not like 17 and 22. Um, and it's lovely to have a heroine of a Victorian novel in her mid-30s and also to have a heroine who sort of hasn't spent much time center stage or like much time thinking of herself as a heroine. I would say that if you like The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow, you might really like Miss Mackenzie. And it's just a really interesting, delightful novel that I love and I know a lot of other people love as well, um, and I think it can be a really nice introduction to Anthony Trollope's work, um, and to the sort of charm of his work. Again, it isn't like hugely widely available in print, um, I got out from my library a while ago, so there have been print editions, um, but there are also ebooks available as well.

[00:21:39]And if you can get your hands on it, it is a really wonderful Anthony Trollope novel that's very much worth your time.

[00:21:44]Then another shorter standalone that might be a good way into Anthony Trollope's work is Rachel Ray. This is, I think, a sort of gentle introduction into Anthony Trollope. It wouldn't be like a top-tier five-star Anthony Trollope book for me, but I do think it's a decent introduction into his work and a very accessible novel and it also has the benefit of being in print. Um, Oxford World Classics have an edition of it, so it's easier to get hold of. It's basically a love story with obstacles.

[00:22:09]Um, we have a young woman, Rachel Ray, um, who meets and quite likes a young man who works at the brewery, um, but her mother and especially her sister are quite suspicious of this young man and are not sure that he is respectable enough for Rachel. There's a lot of really interesting discussion of class.

[00:22:28]Um, Rachel Ray is one of Anthony Trollope's books that is looking at sort of like the lower middle classes. Um, some of his books are a bit more aristocratic, but Rachel Ray is very much not. And I think it's a really interesting novel and a very accessible one and quite a sort of gentle introduction to his work. I will say in the like final third of the novel, there is some anti-Semitism from the characters, not from the author, and it is like lightly criticized by the author, but not like heavily criticized by the author. Um, so I think that's worth being aware of. I have generally tried in this video to recommend Anthony Trollope books that do not contain stuff that like as modern readers are just going to make us wince, um, because, you know, I think you can often expect that kind of thing when you're reading Victorian literature, um, but you don't necessarily want that to be like your introduction to an author's work. But I kind of feel like apart from that, Rachel Ray is such a great place to start with Anthony Trollope that I didn't want to not include it in this video, but I do think that is worth being aware of. Um, it's not a major part of the book and it's quite late on, but it is there. So, those are various standalones, um, that could be a great entry way into Anthony Trollope, um, but finally, my 10th recommendation of where to start is not a novel, but a short story collection and that's this. This is Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope.

[00:23:43]This is a short collection of short stories set at Christmas by Anthony Trollope. They're really fun, um, and I think if you like A Christmas Carol or you like some sort of Victorian Christmas reading and you want to dip your toe very lightly into the works of Anthony Trollope by trying a short story, then this could be a good thing to read. And it's also obviously in print, um, which is helpful. I really enjoyed Christmas at Thompson Hall. I think it's really charming and delightful, um, and this might be a good way to try a little bit of Anthony Trollope, um, without committing to a whole novel. So, those are my 10 recommendations of good places to start with Anthony Trollope. There are, of course, many other good places you could start with Anthony Trollope. He did write 47 novels, um, but those 10, I think, are good places to start. And it was really interesting going through the survey results and seeing where other people suggested starting with Anthony Trollope. I will quickly give you the top like five recommendations from the survey, all of which I have mentioned today, but the top recommended book by other people of where to start with Anthony Trollope was The Warden or like The Barsetshire Chronicles in general.

[00:24:44]Second place was The Way We Live Now, third place was Doctor Thorne's School, fourth was The Belton Estate and fifth was Miss Mackenzie. Those were the ones that received like a lot of recommendations from various people. So, I thought I'd mention that in case that helps sway you at all. And, you know, maybe it's helpful to know that it's not just me who thinks that these are decent places to start with Anthony Trollope.

[00:25:03]But finally, before I wrap up this video, I did want to talk about where not to start with Anthony Trollope.

[00:25:08]First off, as I mentioned earlier, I really wouldn't recommend starting mid-series. He wrote two big series, The Barsetshire Chronicles and The Pallisers, um, and I wouldn't recommend starting in the middle of one of those series. One because there will be things you won't understand without the context of the previous books in the series, but also you will spoil the enjoyment of the previous books by starting mid-series.

[00:25:28]So, I definitely don't recommend starting mid-series. If you want to try the series, start at the beginning with The Barsetshire Chronicles with The Warden and Barchester Towers back-to-back would be my advice. I also wouldn't recommend starting with The Fixed Period because it's really weird.

[00:25:42]I like it, but it's a very strange book and it's also a very atypical Anthony Trollope novel, so I don't think it would give you a good sense of whether or not you'd like Anthony Trollope's books. The Fixed Period is a short, strange science fiction novel by Anthony Trollope set in the 1960s about a country that has introduced a law they call The Fixed Period, meaning that everyone is only allowed to live until the age of 68. And it's a fascinating, strange book, but it is very atypical of Anthony Trollope, so I wouldn't recommend starting there.

[00:26:12]I also wouldn't recommend starting with La Vendée, um, which is Anthony Trollope's only historical novel, which is set, um, in the counter-revolution after the French Revolution because again, it's very atypical, um, and I also don't think it's one of his strongest works. And talking of things that aren't his strongest, I would also not recommend starting with The Kellys and The O'Kellys, Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, Harry Heathcote of Gang Oil or Kept in the Dark because I feel like those are less strong Anthony Trollope books. I will do a ranking at some point in the next few weeks, um, of all of Anthony Trollope's books. It's going to take me ages. I'm going to finish rereading The Claverings first and then I will do that. Um, I'm really looking forward to doing that, um, but those four will not be high on the ranking. And then another three that I wouldn't recommend starting with because I think they have like more things in them that are going to make you as a modern reader wince, um, will be The Landleaguers, The Bertrams and Is He Popenjoy? The Landleaguers has just quite a lot of prejudice in it in lots of different directions, um, and it's also not one of his best and it's also unfinished, so just, you know, probably not one to read unless you're well into your Anthony Trollope journey. The Bertrams is a really interesting novel, but, um, there's one section of the book where the characters travel abroad, um, and there's just quite a lot of racism in it, which is not surprising in a Victorian novel, um, and there are a lot of things still worth reading The Bertrams for, but I do think it's not like going to endear you to Anthony Trollope immediately as an author. And then Is He Popenjoy? is an Anthony Trollope book I have complex feelings about because for like the first three quarters of the book, I was like, this is my new favorite Anthony Trollope book, what an amazing novel. And then in the final quarter, there is both like a random subplot introduced that definitely feels like Anthony Trollope's trying to fill book space, um, and doesn't really work. And also Anthony Trollope like briefly just has a real like winge about women's rights, um, and women wanting the vote, which is not hugely surprising in a Victorian novel, but it did really annoy me, um, and I feel like if that had been like the first Anthony Trollope book I read, that would have put me off him, whereas I read it at a point where I had read enough of his books to not be put off and also to know that he does write really good female characters. He may have not thought that women should have the vote, but his female characters do all feel like real people, which is more than can always be said for Wilkie Collins or the first half of Dickens' career. Yeah, those three are books that I think are worth reading or at least The Bertrams and Is He Popenjoy? I definitely think are worth reading, but I don't think they're a good introduction to Anthony Trollope. As someone from the 21st century reading something from the 19th century, you're often going to encounter stuff that make you wince, but you don't want to be encountering a ton of that in the first book by that author that you read cuz that isn't going to like endear you to that author and make you want to try more necessarily. So, I hope that's useful and interesting to know. I fear this may have been another very long video about Anthony Trollope, but I hope that it has been helpful and I hope that this is useful for people who are looking to get into Anthony Trollope, um, and sort of not quite sure where to begin with his work. And maybe this will be helpful, too, if you've read like a handful of Anthony Trollope books and are looking for some other ones to pick up next. Do, of course, let me know down in the comments if you have any other suggestions for where to start with Anthony Trollope. That's all for now.

[00:29:13]Thanks so much for watching and I'll be back very soon with another bookish video.