Critical Reception

Abstract

Barchester Towers was fairly well received by contemporary reviewers in 1857. Many of their comments are still of considerable interest. The reviewer in the Examiner, for example, drew a comparison with Sterne’s Tristram Shandy: ‘it does not depend only on story for its interest; the careful writing, the good humour with a tendency often to be Shandean in its expression, and the sense and right feeling with which the way is threaded among questions of high church and low church, are very noticeable’. The Spectator made the following criticism of the characterisation: ‘His characters are frequently rather abstractions of qualities than actual persons. They are rather the made results of skill and thought than the spontaneous productions of genius operating instinctively.’ The review in the Leader thought the satire on the low church unfair, but argued that this was atoned for by the power of the writing, while the Athenaeum thought Trollope stronger on character than action and took the view that Slope was ‘the Low Church personified’.