A kindhearted clergyman becomes the subject of scandalous newspaper articles charging him with financial impropriety. The Warden, the first novel in Trollope's classic Barsetshire series pits zealous young reformer John Bold against Septimus Harding, warden of Hiram's Hospital, an almshouse (an early form of subsidized housing for the poor. As Bold works to expose the fact that more of the charity's income goes to Harding than anyone else, he begins to take a romantic interest in Harding's youngest daughter, Eleanor. The first of Anthony Trollope's works to receive widespread popular and critical acclaim, The Warden relentlessly satirizes the church, with its endless bureaucracy and politics, as well as the newspapers that fan the flames of scandal, and features a brilliant exploration of the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality. ANTHONY TROLLOPE (1815-1882) was the epitome of the 19th-century English writer, indefatigable, popular and tightly wired-in to his society, a monument of productivity. One of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era, he wrote insightful novels on political, social, and gender issues, and on other topical matters. Among his masterworks are the Palliser novels, The Warden, Barchester Towers, and The Way We Live Now.