ABSTRACT
Barchester Chronicles are a group, or more properly, a series, expanding and developing novels, providing the reader ever learning more, just as he suspects that the writer's own acquaintance and experience is itself ever widening. Integral as is the clerical setting in much of the Barsetshire series, what Trollope is surely saying is that psychology and morality are the same the world over, that particular men in particular positions will behave in a particular fashion. Whatever be the fame or fashion of his other novels, Trollope is and will remain best known for his Barsetshire series. Barchester may provide the local habitation and the name; the fundamental imaginative achievement has a more universal significance. Barchester is a quiet place, on which has lain undisturbed the peace of generations. It is threatened by 'those whose impiety would venture to disturb the goodly grace of cathedral institutions'.
