If you know Barchester Towers or any other of Anthony Trollope’s work, you will recognise his touch in these essays originally published in 1866 by Chapman & Hall, reprinted from the Pall Mall Gazette. With glorious illustrations by David Eccles and the old fashioned appearance of the type, we are taken back in time, to another era. There are times when you have to remind yourself how long ago these essays were written. What the original readers of these sketches of the characters of Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons and so on down through the hierarchy must have made of them lets our imaginations run riot. There must have been many clergymen very hot under the collar. We can be amused now, but Trollope was addressing very serious issues of his time. While they were happening these injustices were no laughing matter to the people concerned. This would make an excellent Gift book for anyone with a taste for history.