Framley is the fourth of Trollope's six Barsetshire novels
and is a splendid mixture of clerical, political and amorous
intrigue. It reintroduces the frightful Mrs Proudie as well as other
familiar friends from the earlier books, and the reader meets for
the first time the Parson of Framley, Mark Robarts, his strong-
minded and delightful sister Lucy, and the excellent Lady Lufton,
that exemplar of 'Victorian values'.
The athletic and dashing Mark Robarts comes under the influence of an unscrupulous politician, is accused of being a 'hunting parson', and becomes innocently entangled in dubious financial transactions with disastrous consequences. Lucy, meanwhile, finds herself in competition for the same man with the original dumb blonde, Griselda Grantly - the daughter of the intrepid Archdeacon of Barchester.