Barchester Towers

Mr. Slope lost no time in availing himself of the bishop's permission to see Mr. Quiverful, and it was in his interview with this worthy pastor that he first learned that Mrs. Bold was worth the wooing. He rode out to Puddingdale to communicate to the embryo warden the goodwill of the bishop in his favour…

Hospital patronage and widow-wooing braid into one Slope campaign — church plot and marriage plot as one board — so plot scores 92.

Mr. Slope, as we have said, left the palace with a feeling of considerable triumph. Not that he thought that his difficulties were all over--he did not so deceive himself--but he felt that he had played his first move well, as well as the pieces on the board would allow, and that he had nothing with which to reproach himself.

Slope as chess-player against Proudie palace and Eleanor prize — cast individuated by tactic, not type-label alone — so cast scores 93.

On the whole, Miss Thorne's provision for the amusement and feeding of the outer classes in the exoteric paddock was not unsuccessful. Two little drawbacks to the general happiness did take place, but they were of a temporary nature, and apparent rather than real.

Fifty-three chapters; fête paddock dilates after Slope crises, so pace scores 86.

The end of a novel, like the end of a children's dinner party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plums. There is now nothing else to be told but the gala doings of Mr. Arabin's marriage, nothing more to be described than the wedding-dresses…

Children's-party simile names comic closure without purple fog — narrator mastery — so prose scores 91.

In the latter days of July in the year 185--, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various ways--Who was to be the new bishop?

Palace, close, and hourly gossip map Barchester as contested church geography, so world scores 90.

The death of old Dr. Grantly, who had for many years filled that chair with meek authority, took place exactly as the ministry of Lord ---- was going to give place to that of Lord ----.

Vacancy timed to ministry change establishes institutional stakes before Slope enters — so hook scores 92.

Mr. Slope lost no time in availing himself of the bishop's permission to see Mr. Quiverful, and it was in his interview with this worthy pastor that he first learned that Mrs. Bold was worth the wooing.

Low-Church invasion and marriage market treated as one social comedy — clerical novel without Tractarian solemnity — so innov scores 90.

There is now nothing else to be told but the gala doings of Mr. Arabin's marriage, nothing more to be described than the wedding-dresses, no further dialogue to be recorded than that which took place between the archdeacon, who married them, and Mr. Arabin and Eleanor, who were married.

Sugar-plums and wedding dialogue seal comic justice after Slope's farewell — so ending scores 88.