Frank Fenwick, the vicar of the title and a likeable and energetic clergyman, sets out to prove a young man's innocence in a murder and to prevent the eviction of a prostitute from her home. Choosing a prostitute as a central female character, Trollope addresses a topical question of his time: how women should maintain due and proper regard for themselves without adopting either the manners of a prostitute or the political excesses of a feminist.
Author
Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony\_...
