Barsetshire is a fictional English county created by

Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the '' Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves ar ...

in the series of novels known as the

Chronicles of Barsetshire The ''Chronicles of Barsetshire'' is a series of six novels by English author Anthony Trollope, published between 1855 and 1867. They are set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire and its cathedral town of Barchester. The novels concer ...

. The county town and cathedral city is Barchester. Other towns in the novels include Silverbridge, Hogglestock and Greshamsbury.

Origins

According to

E. A. Freeman Edward Augustus Freeman (2 August 182316 March 1892) was an English historian, architectural artist, and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician during the late-19th-century heyday of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, William Gladstone, as ...

, Trollope conceded to him that Barset was in origin

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, although Barchester itself was primarily

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

. Other West Country counties like

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

also contributed, and Gatherum Castle for example was imported from elsewhere, but such important elements as Plumstead Episcopi were drawn directly from Somerset life, in this case

Huish Episcopi Huish Episcopi is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated on the outskirts of Langport, south west of Somerton in the South Somerset district. The parish has a population of 2,095, and includes the hamlets of Bowdens, Combe, P ...

. In sum, Barset was (in Trollope's own words) "a little bit of England which I have myself created".

Political structure

In ''

Doctor Thorne ''Doctor Thorne'' by Anthony Trollope (Chapman and Hall, London, 1858) is the third novel in the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire'' series, between ''Barchester Towers'' and ''Framley Parsonage''. The idea of the plot was suggested to Trollope by ...

'' Trollope describes how the county, formerly represented by a single parliamentary constituency, was split into two constituencies, the more rural East Barsetshire, which includes Barchester, and the more commercial West Barsetshire, by the

Reform Act 1832 The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament, Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major chan ...

. The borough of Silverbridge, according to the Palliser novels, also elects a Member of Parliament.

Interpretation

Adam Gopnik wrote in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', "The six Barsetshire novels... are as much a triumph of the sympathetic imagination as Tolkien's books: it is an entirely invented world, which Trollope entered by transposing his broader knowledge of how the world works onto the inner workings of a cathedral town. The beauty of the idea, though, was that it gave him a way to condense into comedy the crisis of his time: in an age of reform, what would happen to the most conservative and settled institution in England when reform arrived for it, too?"

Later fictional usage

The novel ''

Barchester Pilgrimage ''Barchester Pilgrimage'' is a 1935 novel by Ronald Knox, published in London by Sheed and Ward, in which Knox picks up the narrative of the original Chronicles of Barsetshire where Anthony Trollope breaks off. Knox follows the fortunes of the c ...

'' (1935), and some of the episodes in ''Let Dons Delight'' (1939), both by

Ronald Knox Ronald Arbuthnott Knox (17 February 1888 – 24 August 1957) was an Catholic Church in England and Wales, English Catholic priest, Catholic theology, theologian, author, and radio broadcaster. Educated at Eton College, Eton and Balliol Colleg ...

, refer to Barsetshire and its inhabitants. Barsetshire was also used as the setting for a series of 29 novels by

Angela Thirkell Angela Margaret Thirkell (; , 30 January 1890 – 29 January 1961) was an English and Australian novelist. She also published one novel, ''Trooper to Southern Cross'', under the pseudonym Leslie Parker. Early life She was the elder daughter of ...

, written from 1930 to 1961. Thirkell's stories blend social satire with romance. Her 1946 novel, ''Private Enterprise'', explored discontent with the bureaucracy of the

Attlee government Clement Attlee was invited by King George VI to form the Attlee ministry in the United Kingdom in July 1945, succeeding Winston Churchill as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party had won a landslide victory at the 1945 gener ...

– something echoed by

Orville Prescott Orville Prescott (September 8, 1906, Cleveland, Ohio – April 28, 1996, New Canaan, Connecticut) was the main book reviewer for ''The New York Times'' for 24 years. Born in Cleveland, Prescott graduated from Williams College in 1930. He began his ...

in his poem-review beginning "In Barchester all is not well". Thirkell's final Barsetshire book, ''Three Score and Ten'', was completed posthumously, and published in 1961. Barsetshire is also used in some of the Pullein-Thompson sisters books, usually referring to rival teams or as a nearby county. Barchester and Barset were used as names for the fictional county in which

St Trinians School ''St Trinian's'' is a British gag cartoon comic strip series, created and drawn by Ronald Searle from 1946 until 1952. The cartoons all centre on a boarding school for girls, where the teachers are sadists and the girls are juvenile delinquents ...

was supposedly located in the original films. The county is also mentioned in

Michael Innes John Innes Mackintosh Stewart (30 September 1906 – 12 November 1994) was a Scottish novelist and academic. He is equally well known for the works of literary criticism and contemporary novels published under his real name and for the cri ...

's ''Appleby and Honeybath'' where it is suggested that "the shifting of county boundaries has pretty well done away with Barsetshire" (p 27).

Kevin Kwan Kevin Kwan (born ) is a Singapore-born American novelist and writer of satirical novels ''Crazy Rich Asians'', ''China Rich Girlfriend'', and '' Rich People Problems''. His latest book, '' Sex and Vanity'', was released in June 2020. In 2014, ...

's novel ''Rich People Problems'' names Barsetshire and the village of Barchester as the family home of Lucien Montagu-Scott and his wife, Colette Bing. In '' Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton'',

Dennis Potter Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935 – 7 June 1994) was an English television dramatist, screenwriter and journalist. He is best known for his BBC television serials '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1978), ''The Singing Detective'' (198 ...

's 1965

teleplay A teleplay is a screenplay or script used in the production of a scripted television program or series. In general usage, the term is most commonly seen in reference to a standalone production, such as a television film, a television play, or an ...

, the title character runs unsuccessfully for election as a Labour candidate in the rural constituency of West Barsetshire. HMS Barsetshire, an obsolete County class cruiser, is the training ship for officer candidates in John Winton's ''We Joined The Navy''(1959).

Barchester

Barchester is used as a railway station and location for some of the 1942

Ealing Studios Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever s ...

film ''

The Black Sheep of Whitehall ''The Black Sheep of Whitehall'' (the opening credits read ''Black Sheep of Whitehall'') is a 1942 British black-and-white comedy war film, directed by Will Hay and Basil Dearden, starring Will Hay, John Mills, Basil Sydney and Thora Hird in h ...

''. Barchester Cathedral was used as the setting for the ghost story '' The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral'' by

M. R. James Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English author, Medieval studies, medievalist scholar and provost (education), provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He was List of ...

in his 1911 collection ''

More Ghost Stories ''More Ghost Stories'' is a horror short story collection by British writer M. R. James, published in 1911. Some later editions under the title ''Ghost Stories of an Antiquary'' contain it and the earlier ''Ghost Stories of an Antiquary'' in one ...

''. It is also the setting for

Charlie Lovett Charlie Lovett (born 1962 in Winston-Salem, NC) is a bestselling novelist, bibliophile, podcast producer, children's playwright and expert on both the works and the life of Lewis Carroll. He has the world's largest collection of Carollean memorab ...

's 2017 literary mystery ''The Lost Book of the Grail; or, A Visitor's Guide to Barchester Cathedral''.

William Golding Sir William Gerald Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his debut novel ''Lord of the Flies'' (1954), he published another twelve volumes of fiction in his lifetime. In 1980 ...

refers to Barchester and its cathedral in passing in his 1967 novel ''

The Pyramid A pyramid is a structure with triangular lateral surfaces converging to an apex. Pyramid may also refer to: Anatomy and medicine * Petrous part of the temporal bone, the pyramid * Pyramid (brainstem), the anterior part of medulla oblongata Ga ...

'', set in the small fictional market town of Stilbourne. In

J. L. Carr Joseph Lloyd Carr (20 May 1912 – 26 February 1994), who called himself "Jim" or "James", was an English novelist, publisher, teacher and eccentric. Biography Carr was born in Carlton Miniott in the North Riding of Yorkshire, next to Thirsk ...

's 1975 novella ''

How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup ''How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A. Cup'' is the fourth novel by J. L. Carr, published in 1975. The novel is a comic fantasy that describes in the form of an official history how a village football club progressed through the FA Cup to ...

'', the title team play in the Barchester & District League. During the course of the story, they play Barchester City (known as the Holy Boys) at home in an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

qualifier.

References

External links

Map of Barsetshire

Another map of Barsetshire

A third map of Barsetshire
{{Authority control Fictional counties England in fiction Cathedrals in fiction Fictional populated places in England