Trollope's novels are back in an appealing world classics series

The Chronicles of Baretshire by Anthony Trollope. Oxford, England: Oxford UniversityPress. The World's Classics edition: volumes. $6.95 each (paperback) The Chronicles of Barsetshire, by Anthony Trollope. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. The World's Classics edition: six volumes. $6.95 each (paperback).

In this age of haste and anonymity, of hurried double-income family life, and of international issues brought into the living room via television, we turn with pleasure to the works of 19th-century English novelist Anthony Trollope.

In several multivolume works, Trollope chronicles the provincial lives and personal concerns of a well-defined group of characters.

Their joys and trials are made great and consequential by the fact that every individual is significant in his or her community. Each person has a role to play, and it is an essential one to those whose lives he or she touches.

In ''The World's Classics'' paperbacks, Oxford University Press brings us works by Victorian authors in handsome editions well suited to the modern reader. The covers are gracefully illustrated; the bindings, though not sewn, can take a beating. The paper is thin - keeping down the volumes' bulk without making them flimsy. And if you feel rusty on the Victorian Age, a qualified professor of literature sets the scene for you in a substantial introduction.

Take, for example, the six-volume ''The Chronicles of Barsetshire,'' which treats the lives of the clergy and landed gentry in an English cathedral city. Sink into an armchair, make yourself cozy, and revel in an engaging story, complete with the authoritative text and illustrations only Oxford University Press can provide.$90 by Risemary Herberyt; Rosemary Herbert covers university publishing for the Monitor.