The Vicar of Bullhampton
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This novel offers a compelling exploration of Victorian social issues—redemption, class, and justice—through richly drawn characters and Trollope's signature blend of moral seriousness and gentle irony.
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Book Summary
In Anthony Trollope's novel, the Vicar of Bullhampton, Mr. Fenwick, navigates village life while championing the redemption of a fallen woman, Carry Brattle, and defending her brother Sam against unjust murder suspicions. Interwoven is Mary Lowther's romantic dilemma between a practical suitor and her true love, exploring themes of forgiveness, class conflict, and moral courage.
The story unfolds in the Wiltshire village of Bullhampton, where Vicar Frank Fenwick is a man of strong convictions. He becomes embroiled in the troubles of the Brattle family: the miller's son Sam is suspected of murder due to his association with thieves, and his sister Carry is a 'fallen woman' shunned by her father. Fenwick risks his reputation to help them, challenging the hypocritical moral standards of the parish. Meanwhile, Mary Lowther, a guest of the Fenwicks, rejects a marriage proposal from the wealthy Squire Harry Gilmore, choosing instead to follow her heart and marry her cousin Captain Walter Marrable, despite family opposition. The novel also features a religious conflict between Fenwick and the Methodist minister Mr. Puddleham over a chapel built opposite the vicarage, which is eventually resolved. In the conclusion, Sam Brattle returns to the mill and marries, while the miller slowly begins to forgive Carry, though the family remains burdened by disgrace. The novel ends with reconciliation between the Vicar and the Marquis of Trowbridge, and Mary's happy marriage.
Reading guide
Go deeper in The Vicar of Bullhampton
Character guides, themes, chapter companions — plus Character Web, narrative arc, and theme heatmap teasers that unlock fully beside the text in BetterReads.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book.
Mary Lowther
Mary Lowther arrives in Bullhampton as the woman Harry Gilmore loves and cannot win, and as the cousin Walter Marrable remembers as the loveliest little girl at Dunripple. When Walter's inheritance collapses, she faces Aunt Sarah's blunt arithmetic — a man going out to India on an officer's pay cannot afford a wife — and answers that marriage is like death, common to all. Her stubborn loyalty sets the romantic and moral weather of the novel's middle chapters.
Mr. Fenwick
Frank Fenwick has spent years keeping the Methodist Mr. Puddleham in parochial amity — feeding him cabbages and peaches until the old poacher of souls has nothing left to bite. When the Marquis's new Bethel threatens to rise on the vicar's own ground, Fenwick's instinct for a quarrel is roused. His chivalrous, quixotic friendships — with the Brattles, with Sam, with the fallen Carry — make him the moral engine of the parish and the target of every Puddlehamite whisper.
Harry Gilmore
Gilmore is the Vicar's nearest neighbour and steadiest friend, a man whose opinions are worth having — except during the winter when Mary's absence made him morose and useless. The news that she is coming in early summer throws off his sadness so visibly that Mrs. Fenwick is almost frightened by his elation. His hopefulness and his vulnerability make him the novel's most sympathetic loser, and his recovery of spirits lets him re-enter the parish's troubles as a working friend again.
Captain Walter Marrable
Walter Marrable comes to his uncle Parson John's rectory fresh from a rupture with Colonel Marrable — a man of debts, arrests, and broken promises whom the whole family has spent its interest on. He remembers Mary from Dunripple as the most beautiful little girl in the world, and warns his uncle he has no heart left for kind words to anyone. His loss of the fortune he expected turns an idle visit into a reckoning with what he can and cannot offer the woman he comes to love.
Sam Brattle
Sam Brattle is a young man the Vicar once had high hopes for, hopes that have grown fainter over eighteen months of trouble. When Fenwick catches him in the parsonage garden and smashes his shoulder, Sam refuses to name the friends he was with, and the mystery of that night hardens into the parish's belief that the Vicar knows more than he will say. His mother and sister are among Fenwick's favourites, which is precisely why the Vicar is so reluctant to hand him to the constable.
Carry Brattle
Carry Brattle has gone where her father will not name her, and the Vicar's attempt to bring her home through her mother ends in a silent, wretched drive back to Bullhampton when the girl slips away rather than face respectability. Her letter from London — half apology, half defiance, signed with love she dares not send — leaves Fenwick sick at heart and doubting his own enthusiasm. She is the novel's sharpest question about whether fallen women can be reclaimed, and whether the attempt is worth the cost.
Redemption and the Fallen Woman
The novel centers on Carry Brattle, a 'castaway' or fallen woman, exploring whether society and the church can offer her redemption and a path back to decency, despite the permanent stain of her transgression.
Class and Social Power
The conflict between the Vicar, the Marquis of Trowbridge, and Squire Gilmore highlights the tensions between landed aristocracy, gentry, and clergy, with the Marquis using his power to punish the Vicar by supporting a rival chapel.
Religious Conflict and Toleration
The rivalry between the Anglican Vicar Fenwick and the Methodist minister Mr. Puddleham, including the building of a chapel opposite the vicarage, explores sectarian strife and the limits of religious toleration in a rural parish.
Justice and Prejudice
Sam Brattle is suspected of murder largely due to his family's disgrace and his association with criminals, raising questions about whether a fair trial is possible when social prejudice taints the legal process.
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