The Chronicles of Barsetshire. The Warden. Barchester Towers

Anthony Trollope is a British classic whose contemporary popularity in the English-speaking world can only be compared to that of Jane Austen ("Trollope kills me with his mastery," wrote Leo Tolstoy in his diary), and the "Chronicles of Barsetshire" are rightly considered one of his main achievements. (In 1982, the BBC released the series "Barchester Chronicles," starring Alan Rickman and Donald Pleasence.) This book includes the first two "chronicles" - "The Warden" and "Barchester Towers" - which are often compared to Leskov's "Cathedral Folk." In the quiet provincial town, serious passions unfold, and in the Barchester ecclesiastical characters - the warden and archdeacon, the bishop and Mrs. Proudie - the reader unexpectedly recognizes themselves, their relatives, and colleagues, while the church squabbles of Victorian England, the conflict between personal conscience and traditional privileges, reflect pressing issues of modernity.