The Warden (Anthony Trollope, 1855)

Septimus Harding is warden of Hiram’s Hospital, a charitable almshouse funded by money bequeathed to the Diocese of Barchester. He is a clergyman of great personal integrity, but he appears to be receiving exorbitant earnings from the charitable funds. On discovering this, young upstart John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he regards as an abuse of privilege, and an influential major newspaper seizes the opportunity to question the hospital’s dealings. To complicate matters, John Bold is in love with Mr. Harding’s daughter Eleanor.

Anthony Trollope is among the supreme chroniclers of the minutiae of Victorian England. He used the specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality.
The Warden is a drama of conscience that pits individual integrity against worldly ambition. It features the realism, satire, and biting social commentary that helped establish Anthony Trollope as one of the preeminent English novelists of his day.