The book creates a broad, comprehensive picture of the life of the Anglican clergy. To show both “Christian virtue and Christian hypocrisy,” this is how the author himself defined his intentions. And although the city of Barchester is not on the map of England, just as Barsetshire, the county in which Trollope’s novels are set, is not on it, but over a hundred years they have managed to become so firmly entrenched in the consciousness of many generations of English readers that they are perceived as an authentic reality.