Anthony Trollope

"Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope? They precisely suit my taste; solid, substantial, written on strength of beef and through inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were made a show of."

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Letter of February 11, 1860 to his publisher

There are several good sources of biographical information.

The Victorian Web: Anthony Trollope: An Overview.

The Victorian Web is maintained by George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History at Brown University.

PBS also has a good write up on The Way We Live Now pages at pbs.org.

Biography

Following his father's death, Trollope's mother, Frances, embarked on a writing career to make ends meet. Trollope himself obtained a job in the Post Office in 1834, and was sent to work in Ireland in 1841. On the numerous long train trips Trollope had to take to carry out his Post Office duties, he began writing, and set very firm goals about how much he would write per day, earning Trollope the title of being one of the most prolific writers of his time. He wrote his earliest novels while working as a Post man, occasionally dipping into the 'lost-letter' box for ideas (it is significant that many of his earliest novels have Ireland as their setting — natural enough given his background, but not likely to lead to a warm critical reception given the contemporary English attitudes towards Ireland). During the period of his employment as a Post Office official, Trollope is credited with having introduced the pillar box (a bright red mail box) in the United Kingdom.

After leaving the service and failing in a bid for election to Parliament, Trollope became a full-time writer, working as editor of the St Paul's Magazine. Through this magazine he published several of his novels. His first major success came with The Warden (1855) — the first in the series of six novels set in the mythical county of "Barsetshire". The best-known of these is probably the comic masterpiece, Barchester Towers (1857).

Trollope's other major sequence of novels, serialised in the 1970s by the BBC under the title, The Pallisers, deals with politics, mainly in the shape of Plantagenet Palliser (although, like the Barsetshire series, many other characters feature in each novel). Also noteworthy are Cousin Henry and Dr. Wortle's School (both probing psychological and moral studies in the vein of The Warden) and The Way We Live Now, a sweeping satire that has of late years received increasing respect and which was recently dramatised by the BBC.

By the time of his death, Trollope had completed approximately four dozen novels, as well as dozens of short stories and a few books on travel.

Anthony Trollope died in 1882 and was interred in Kensal Green Cemetery, London, England, where Wilkie Collins is also buried.

Reputation

Henry James drove the final nail into the coffin of Trollope's reputation. The young James wrote some scathing reviews of Trollope's novels (The Belton Estate, for instance, he called "a stupid book, without a single thought or idea in it ... a sort of mental pablum"). He also made it clear that he despised Trollope's narrative method; a real novel, in James's view, should maintain "the fiction of fiction", and never talk as if the made-up characters actually were made up. Nor would the reliable narrator have appealed to James's tastes. As trends in the world of the novel moved increasingly towards subjectivity, James's views and, more importantly, modern ideas on the novel in general, assured that Trollope would remain obscure for decades. In the forties some attempts were made to resurrect Trollope; he enjoyed a brief critical Renaissance in the sixties; and again in the nineties. Critics today are particularly interested in Trollope's portrayal of women — which caused remark even in his own day for its remarkable insight and sensitivity to the inner conflicts caused by the constrained position of women in Victorian society. But the understanding that critics find largely in Trollope's portrayal of women, readers find in Trollope's portrayals of human beings in general. Trollope's sales amongst readers have never waned.

A Trollope Society flourishes in the UK.

Trollope on television

The Pallisers, a 26-episode adaptation of all six Palliser novels, first broadcast in 1974. Adapted by Simon Raven; starred Philip Latham as Plantagenet Palliser.

The Barchester Chronicles, an eight-episode adaptation of the first two Barset novels, The Warden and Barchester Towers. Adapted by Alan Plater; starred Donald Pleasance as the Reverend Septimus Harding, Nigel Hawthorne as Archdeacon Grantly, and Alan Rickman as the Reverend Obadiah Slope.

The Way We Live Now, a four-episode adaptation of the novel of the same name. Adapted by Andrew Davies; starred David Suchet as Auguste Melmotte and Matthew MacFadyen as Sir Felix Carbury.

All three have been shown in the United States on PBS; The Pallisers in its own right, and The Barchester Chronicles and The Way We Live Now as part of Masterpiece Theatre.

Works

Barsetshire series

• The Warden (1855)
• Barchester Towers (1857)
• Doctor Thorne (1858)
• Framley Parsonage (1861)
• The Small House at Allington (1864)
• The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)

Pallisers series

• Can You Forgive Her? (1864)
• Phineas Finn (1869)
• The Eustace Diamonds (1873)
• Phineas Redux (1874)
• The Prime Minister (1876)
• The Duke's Children (1879)

other

• The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847)
• The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848)
• La Vendee (1850)
• The Three Clerks (1858)
• The West Indies and the Spanish Main (1859)
• The Bertrams (1859)
• Castle Richmond (1860)
• Tales of All Countries--1st Series (1861)
• Tales of All Countries--2nd Series (1863)
• Tales of All Countries--3rd Series (1870)
• Orley Farm (1862)
• North America (1862)
• Rachel Ray (1863)
• Miss Mackenzie (1865)
• The Belton Estate (1866)
• The Claverings (1867)
• Nina Balatka (1867)
• Linda Tressel (1868)
• He Knew He Was Right (1869)
• Brown, Jones, and Robinson (1870)
• The Vicar of Bullhampton (1870)
• An Editor's Tales (1870)
• Caesar (Ancient Classics) (1870)
• Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (1871)
• Ralph the Heir (1871)
• The Golden Lion of Granpere (1872)
• Australia and New Zealand (1873)
• Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (1874)
• Lady Anna (1874)
• The Way We Live Now, (1875)
• The American Senator (1877)
• Is He Popenjoy? (1878)
• South Africa (1878)
• John Caldigate (1879)
• An Eye for an Eye (1879)
• Cousin Henry (1879)
• Thackeray (1879)
• Life of Cicero (1880)
• Ayala's Angel (1881)
• Doctor Wortle's School (1881)
• Frau Frohmann and other Stories (1882)
• Lord Palmerston (1882)
• The Fixed Period (1882)
• Kept in the Dark (1882)
• Marion Fay (1882)
• Mr. Scarborough's Family (1883)

External links

• Autobiography of Anthony Trollope (Project Gutenberg e-text)
• Project Gutenberg e-texts of some of Anthony Trollope's works

Referenced By