The Warden is a slim novel exploring financial mismanagement, libel, and the power of the media. Published in 1855, it’s the first in Anthony Trollope six Barsetshire chronicles. The man at the heart of the scandal is Reverend Septimus Harding, warden of a hospice giving food and shelter to twelve men. Harding receives a generous stipend for this position and life, with his bonny daughter, is rosy.

Until his prospective son-in-law begins to investigate the legitimacy of Harding’s living allowance. Scandal follows, as does self-doubt. The question: how much income should be drawn from charity funds?

An interesting feature in the novel is Trollope’s wandering narrator. He directly addresses the reader as ‘Dear ladies’ and ‘my middle-aged bachelor friend,’ he presents an acquaintanceship with Archdeacon Grantly’s sons, and appears in both first-person and first-person plural forms. The narrator expresses fears for the heroine, regrets the under-development of the Archdeacon’s character, and comments on the novelist’s power to invade or avoid the inner chatter of characters.

“I live in hopes of finishing my work within 300 pages, and of completing that pleasant task – a novel in one volume…”.

There are amusing references to novelists Charles Dickens and Ann Radcliffe. The former parodied as Mr Popular Sentiment, the latter teased for the twaddle of her heroines.

But it’s all too little. The opening chapters are a bog of exposition, the villains are undermined, whole chapters are redundant, and there’s little zip in the love story. I hesitate to read further into the series. That said, the second volume – Barchester Towers – is supposed to crackle.