Barchester Towers

Anthony Trollope

Oxford Bookworms LibraryLevel 6

Mrs Proudie, the warlike wife of the new Bishop of Barchester, brings the Reverend Slope into the Bishop's Palace to help dominate her husband and rule the local clergy. But Slope is a snake in the grass, determined to find a rich wife, to win advancement for himself, even to fight Mrs Proudie if necessary.

Their battle becomes a furious dance, involving rich, pretty Widow Bold, angry Archdeacon Grantly, man-eating Signora Neroni, gentle Mr Harding, confused Parson Quiverful and his fourteen noisy children.

This classic comic story is Trollope's most famous novel.

Trollope Anthony

Barchester Towers

BARCHESTER TOWERS

In the great cathedral cities of England, the church and politics go hand in hand. The government appoints the bishop, who is the head of the church in that city, and below him come archdeacons, deans, vicars, parsons, chaplains – all kinds of clergymen, of differing degrees of rank, importance, influence, and income.

All this is complicated enough, but the appointment of Dr Proudie as the new Bishop of Barchester overturns the old established order in that peaceful city, and a struggle for power begins against the new bishop’s wife, the fearsome Mrs Proudie. And when you also add to the mixture the new bishop’s chaplain, the oily and ambitious Obadiah Slope, you have a recipe for war.

And as well as the struggle for power in the church, there is also the game of love, which is played by very different rules, according to the player. Mrs Eleanor Bold, a pretty young widow, believes in honest and truthful ways of dealing with people, but she does not always understand the deceitful ways of men. The Signora Madeline Neroni, on the other hand, understands men only too well, and her beauty and her wit and her charm draw men to her, like flies into a spider’s web …

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi

Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi

New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

With offices in

Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece

Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore

South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

OXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of

Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

This simplified edition В© Oxford University Press 2008

Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published in Oxford Bookworms 2006

2 4 6 8 1 0 9 7 5 3 1

No unauthorized photocopying

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department,

Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

Any websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the content

ISBN: 978 0 19 479254 7

Printed in Hong Kong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Photographs are from the BBC TV production The Barchester Chronicles and are reproduced by courtesy of BBC. They feature Alan Rickman, Geraldine McEwan, Clive Swift, Janet Maw, Susan Hampshire, and Peter Blythe

Word count (main text): 29,520 words

For more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/elt/bookworms

e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 463033 7

e-Book first published 2015

PEOPLE IN THIS ST