Doctor Thorne

Published in 1858, this third Barsetshire novel is set at Greshamsbury, where the squire's family is land-rich and cash-poor. Frank Gresham is told he must marry money; he wants Mary Thorne, the illegitimate niece whom the village doctor has raised. Dr Thorne also attends the self-made, hard-drinking contractor Sir Roger Scatcherd, whose fortune and baronetcy sit uneasily beside the old county families. The plot turns on inheritance, the marriage market, and what the doctor knows about Mary's birth and expectations. It is a social comedy of property and blood in a rural English county, not a London political novel.

Quarter bound in orange cloth series binding. Map endleaves. Pale grey slipcase.