Anthony Trollope tops Hatchards poll to find best novel of past 200 years

London’s oldest bookshop chooses first instalment of Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles, The Warden, as best novel published since the shop’s opening in 1797 

‘It’s a fitting tribute in the author’s 200-year anniversary’ … Anthony Trollope in around 1875. Photograph: Rischgitz/Getty Images

Alison Flood

Friday 27 November 2015  The Guardian

The customers of London’s oldest bookshop Hatchards have eschewed the erotic appeal of EL James and the thrill-a-minute conspiracies of Dan Brown to choose Anthony Trollope’s gentle satire of the Church of England, The Warden, as their favourite novel of the past 200 years.

An initial list of about 100 titles was drawn up by Hatchards in what a spokesperson described as “an unsurprisingly lengthy meeting or two”. This longlist, drawn from books published in the 218 years since the shop opened on Piccadilly, London, was then whittled down to a shortlist of six.
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