THE BEDSIDE BARSETSHIRE

If you are seeking an effortlessly charming introduction to Trollope, this is your answer. It is keyed to that demand rather than a tantalizing taste of richer fare, nostalgic in mood, as was The Trollope Reader edited by Esther Dunn and Marion Dodd (Oxford) in 1947. The six Chronicles of Barsetshire are ""sampled"" in judiciously selected extracts, whole episodes, brief pen portraits, pungent epigrams. One gets the flavor of Trollope, without the full substance. One meets his chief characters,- the Proudies, the Greshams, the Crawleys, and of course Dr. Thorne, Mr. Slope and others. Two or three original essays serve to set the scene and distill the essence.