The Warden, novel by Anthony Trollope, published in 1855. Trollope’s first literary success, The Warden was the initial work in a series of six books set in the fictional county of Barsetshire and known as the Barsetshire novels. The Rev. Septimus Harding, the conscientious warden of a charitable retirement home for men, resigns after being accused of making too much profit from the sinecure. Trollope continued Harding’s story in Barchester Towers (1857).