ANTHONY TROLLOPE'S LITERARY REPUTATION: ITS DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDITY PDF Free Download
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ANTHONY
TROLLOPE*S LITERARY REPUTATION;
ITS
DEVELOPMENT
AND
VALIDITY
by
ELLA
KATHLEEN
GRANT
A
Thesis
Submitted
in
Partial
Fulfillment
of
the
Requirements
for.
the
Degree
of
Master
of
Arts
in
the
Department
English
of
The
University
of
British
Columbia,
October,
1950.
This
essay
attempts
to
trace
the
course
of
Anthony
Trollope's
literary
reputation;
to
suggest
some
explan-
ations
for the
various spurts
and
sudden
declines
of his
popularity
among
readers
and
esteem
among
critics;
and to
prove
that
his
mid-twentieth
century position
is not a
just
one.
Drawing
largely
on
Trollope's
Autobiography,
contemp-
orary
reviews
and
essays
on his
work,
and
references
to
it
in
letters
and
memoirs,
the
first
chapter
describes
Trollope's writing career,
showing
him
rising
to
popu-
larity
in the
late
fifties
and
early
sixties
as a
favour-
ite
among
readers
tired
of
sensational
fiction,
becoming
a
byword
for
commonplace
mediocrity
in the
seventies,
and
finally,
two
years
before
his
death,
regaining
much of
his
former
eminence
among
older
readers
and
conservative
critics.
Throughout
the
chapter
a
distinction
is
drawn
between
the two
worlds
with
which
Trollope deals, Barset-
shire
and
materialist society,
and the
peculiarly dual
nature
of his work is
emphasized.
Chapter
II is
largely
concerned
with
the
vicissitudes
that Trollope's reputation
has
encountered
since
the
post-
humous
publication
of his
autobiography.
During
the de-
cade
following
his
death
he is shown as an
object
of comp-
lete
contempt
to the Art for
Art's
Sake
school,
finally
rescued
around
the
turn
of the
century
by
critics
reacting
against
the
ideals
of his
detractors.
There
follows
a
description
of his
unsteady
rise
to
popularity
and es-
teem
through
the
next
forty years,
and of his
extraordi-
nary
popularity during
the
Second
World
War. Two
esti-
mates
of
Trollope
emerge
from
the
controversy:
the one
which
praises him as the
supreme
escapist creator of Bar-
setshire;
and the one
which
exalts the
courage
and
hone-
sty
of the
Autobiography.
It is
suggested
that neither
of
these
can provide a
just
evaluation of Trollope's
importance
as a
novelist,
since the
first
ignores the
greater part of his
work
and the
second
concentrates on
the man rather
than
upon
his novels.
The
final
portion of
this
chapter
is
devoted
to a
brief
discussion of
certain
of Trollope's
major
novels,
and
argues
that the
evidence
derived is
sufficient
to
prove
both
these
gradually
developed
views
of
Anthony
Trollope
invalid
as
estimates
of his
worth
as a
novelist.
ANTHONY
TROLLOPE*
S
LITERARY
REFUTATION
I.Anthony
Trollope
In his own
Time.
In
1847 appeared! the
first
novel from the pen of
Anthony
Trollope,
who
nearly
thirty
years
later
could
claim
a
record
of
literary
performance
"more
in
amount
than the
works
of any other
living
English
author."1 As a beginning
p
for
such a
lengthy
career
The Macdermotts of
Ballycloran
was not
auspicious.
Published
by
Newby
at the
urging
of
Fanny
Trollope,
still
a popular
novelist
herself,
the
book
was promptly
ignored
by readers and
critics alike.
Trollope
recalls
that
he never heard another
word
about it from his
publisher^,
while the one
critical
notice
which appeared
reflects
the
reception
that
any
Irish
novel not of the;
rollicking
Charles
Lever
variety
was
likely
to get from an
England
weary
of
gloomy
news
of the famine of r47:
...an
Irish
novel has
become
to us something
like
the haunted
chest
in the corner of
Merchant
Abudak1s
apartment, which even
when
closed
he
knew
to
contain
a shape of
Terror
and a
voice
of
Woe...
fThe
Macdermotts of
Ballycloran:
is)a
tale
of
ruin,
crime and sorrow...
ft
told
with
power
and pathos
enough
to darken the sun-
shine
of the
most
cheerful
reader....Twenty
years
ago "The Macdermotts" would
have
made
a
reputation
for its author^....4
Trollope,
Anthony, An Autobiography, Oxford, Oxford
University-
Press,1946,"World*s
Classics"
Series,p.331.
All
subsequent
references
are to
this;
edition.
2"Trollope,
Anthony; The Macdermotts of
Ballycloran,,
3;
vols,
London,
Newby,
1847.
3
Trollope,,
Auto., p.68.
4
Athenaeum.
May
15.1847.p.517.
-
2 -
\
Such
a
reception
might
have
proved
chilling
to
most
young
writers,,
but
Trollope
was no
ordinary budding author.
The Trollopes
were,
as the
Stebbinses
have
recently
called
them,
5
"a
writing
family."
In the
forties
Anthony*s
mother,
brother
and
sister
were
all
more or
less
successful authors,
and
with
this
family
background
he had
from
the
very beginning
a
firmly
matter-of-fact
approach
to the
writing
of
novels,
and a
real-
istic
attitude
towards
his
probable success
at
first.
Persever-
ing
as a
matter
of
course,
he
next produced
The
Kellys
and the
7
O'Kellys,
which
was
published
by
Colburn, long
Fanny
Trollope's
published,
in 1848,
with
much the same
result
as had met The
Macdermotts.
"The
book
was not
only
not
read,
but was
never
heard
of, - at any
rate
in
Ireland."8
In
England
the
situation
was
only
slightly
different:
the
book
was not much
read,(Colburn
reported
the same of 140
copies);
while
anyone
who
happened
to
be reading
the
lesser
notices
In the
Times
and the
Athenaeum
in
the
summer of 1848
would
have
met
with accounts
of it
which
would
have
fairly
warned
him
against rushing
out to
purchase
one
of the
remaining
235
copies
of
that
first
edition.
The
Times
Trollope
recalls
as
comparing
the
novel
to a leg of
9
mutton
"...substantial,
but a
little
coarse", while
the
Athen-
aeum
made
much of the
"unpleasantness"
of the
subject matter,
a brotherrs
cruelty
to his
sister,
though
noting with approval
5
Stebbins,
Lucy
Poate,
and
Stebbins, Richard Poate,
The
Trollopes:
The
Chronicle
of a
Writing
Family,New.
York,
Columbia
University
Press,-
1945.
6
Trollope,
Auto.,
pp.
48,62-63,
68-69.
7
Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Kellys
and the
O'Kellys:
or
Landlords
and Tenants,
3
vols.,
London,
Colburn, 1848.
8
Trollope,
Auto.,
p.69.
9
Trollope,
Auto.,
p.71.
- 3 -
that
"Humour
pervades
its
scenes,
- and it is the true '
"emerald"
humour;..
.""^
The
failure
of
this
second
Irish
novel resulted In
a
letter
from
Colburn stating that
"...It
is Impossible...
to
give any
encouragement
to you to
proceed
in novel-writing...."
and yet paradoxically requesting " a sight of" the novel
f
IB
La
Vendee
which
he had
heard
was nearly
finished.
This
historical
novel is the
first
of Trollope's
attempts
to give
the public
what
he
thought
it
wanted.
Colburm
too
seems
to
have
had higher
hopes
of
this
production, since he paid t 20
down
and
agreed
to pay a further E30
when
350 copies had
been
13
sold,
and £50 should sales within six
months
reach 450.
How-
ever,
even
the lure of an
historical
subject did not
save
La
Vendee
from
the fate of its
Irish
predecessors. Sales did not
•
mount,
and
even
the
faithful
Athenaeum
considered the
book
rather an
unnecessary
venture, in
view
of the excellent eye-
14
witness
accounts
extant of the subject.
At
this
point Trollope
began
to consider not
whether
he should stop writing, but
whether
he should
strike
out in
some
new
direction.
His casting
about
produced
a series of
letters
defending the
Government's
Irish
policy
in the
Examiner;
a play, The
Noble
Jilt,
which
was
submitted
for
criticism
to an
old
friend,
George
Bart
ley,
the actor, and
condemned
without
mercy;
and a
fragment
of a
handbook
to Ireland. All of. these
1QAthenaeum.
July 15, 1848, p.701.
•^Trollope,
Auto..p.72.
l2Trollope
%
Anthony,
LaVendee«
An
Historical
Roman
ce. 3 vols.,
London,
Colburn, 1850.
13Trollope,
Auto.,
p.72.
14
Athenaeum.
July 6, 1850, p. 708.
are of no
importance
in the general
scheme
of
Trollope*
s;
development,
except that they
illustrate
an aspect of his
personality
which
becomes
quite apparent
later
in his career,
his
readiness to
attempt
something
different,
either
to
demon
strate
versatility,
or to catch the attention of the
public.
The years
from
1850-1852
were
In
truth
too
fully
taken up with Post
Office
work
to allow Trollope
mucin
time
for
furthering
his
second
career.
These
were
the years of
the postal survey of his section of Ireland and then of
"Devonshire, Cornwall, Somersetshire, the greater part of
Dorsetshire,
the
Channel
Islands, part of Oxfordshire, Wilt-
shire,
Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Mon-
15
mouthshire,
and the six southern
Welsh
counties"-: During
these
travels
he had occasion to
visit
Salisbury, and there
conceived the idea for a new novel
which
was to
mark
the
real
16
beginning of his
literary
career. This
work.
The
Warden.
was
begun
in 1852,
finished
in 1853, and published In 1855.
Comparatively speaking The
Warden
was at
once
a
success,
critically
if not popularly. Like the
Irish
novels,
it
was a
book
with a
purpose:
I had
been
struck by two opposite
evils,-
or
what
seemed
to me to be evils,-and with an
absence
of all art -
judgment
in such matters,
I thought I
might;
be able to
expose
them,
or
rather
to describe
them,
both in one and the
same
tale.
The
first
evil
was the possession
by the
Church
of
certain
funds and
endowments
which
had
been
intended for
charitable
purposes,
but
which
had
been
allowed to
become;
income
for
idle
church
dignitaries...
.The
second
evil
was
its
very apposite.
Though
I had
been
much
struck
by the
injustice
above
described, I had also often
^
been
angered
by the
undeserved
severity
of the
Trollope,
Auto.,
pp.80
- 81.
Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Warden.
1
vol.,London,Longman,1855
- 5 -
newspapers
towards
the recipients of
such
incomes,
who could hardly be considered to be the chief
sinners in the
matter.17
Nevertheless, the
problem
with
which
The
Warden
dealt was one
much
In the
minds
of the English public at the
time.
While
the
Irish
question
might
be
felt
by the novel-reading public to be
a
gloomy
political
bore,
scandal in the high places of the
church
was quite
another
matter.
Once
again the
Athenaeum
was
faithful,
and
produced
a generally enthusiastic
review
of
some
length; the chief
fault
in
the
tale
was
felt
to be that the writer
showed
"too
much
18
indifference
as to the rights of the
case."
The objection is
valid
enough,
for
though.
Trollope may
have
intended to discuss
the
proper
management
of charitable
funds,
he
succeeded
instead
in
presenting a
portrait
of a
good
and gentle man
attempting
to
decide
what
he should do, and
them,
standing- by his decision In
spite
of
argument
from
his friends and associates.
The
Warden
brought
Trollope the
first
money
he had
ever
earned
by
literary
work,
since
characteristically
he points
L r 19
out that the £20
from
Lawendee
was an outright
gift.
By the
end of 1856 he had received £20,
3s.9d.
from
Longman,,
but sales
could hardly
have
been
termed
brisk:. Ten
years
later
Trollope
could write to
Monckton
Milnes; "I
send
you a
copy
of
*The
War-
den.*",
which
Wm.
Longman-
assures
me is the
last
of the
First
Edit.
There
were,
I think,
only.750
printed, and
they
have
20
been
over
ten
years
in
hand...."
17Trollope,
Auto.,p.86.
18Athenaeum,
Jan.27,1855,
p.107,
^Trollops,
Auto.,
p.9Q-
20Re
11
6 -
Nevertheless,
The;
Warden
established Trollope
as an
author.
His
published
was complimentary, and in
contrast
to
the
dull
silence
which had
greeted
his
earlier
efforts Trollope
found
that
those around him
knew
that
he had
written
a book.
He
felt
too
that
he had
discovered
from it "...wherein lay
whatever
strength
I did
possess...I
had
realised
to myself a
series
of
portraits,
and had: been
able
so to put
them
on the
canvas
that
my
readers
should
see
that
which I
meant
them
to
21
see." After three
failures
abounding in
serious
purpose
Trollope
emerges as a
creator
of
portraits,
a whole
gallery
of
the
society
of
Barsetshire.
Feeling confident
of his
ability
to
continue
in
this
direction,
Trollope
turned,
at once to the
writing'
of a new
22
book:,,
Bar
Chester Towers , which
must
surely
be the
first
Eng-
lish
novel
to; be
written
almost
entirely
in a
railway carriage'.
By 1857 the
three
volume
novel
was in the hands of
William
Longman,
who
offered
to
print
it on the
half-profit
system,
with
an advance of £100,
provided that Trollope
make
certain
changes
in
the
work:,
most of
them
small,
but In
chief,
a
reduction
of
the story
to two-volume
length. This Trollope refused'
to do,
but
Longman
withdrew his
request
and
published
BarChester
Towers in
three
volumes.
The
mild ripple
of
interest
which. The
Warden
had
stirred
was
useful
to the new
novel.
As the
Athenaeum
writer
put
It ". .;Hr.
Trollope
has not to contend,
against
the
diffi-
culty
of
Interesting
us, at the
outset,
in his personages
21
Trollope,, Aufet.,
pp.90
- 91.
22
Trollope,
Anthony,
Bar
Chester Towers, 5
vols.,
London,
Longman,
1857.
- 7 -
or
In his
narrative;
we are by no
means
strangers In
23
Barchester... •**
Most
reviewers
dealt
with the two
works
together,
and the general
feeling
was that a new
novelist,
of
real
promise
and
Importance
had
appeared.
The
Times
broke
silence
In
August
with a
complimentary
notice a
column
24
long;
and October found the
high-minded
Westminster-
Review
being
truly
enthusiastic;
"...we
can hardly (at
this
late
date) expect to
assist
in extending its
circulation
in its
present
form,
when
we
state
our opinion of it as decidedly
the
cleverest
novel of the season, and one of the
most
mascu-
line
delineations of
modern
life
in a
special
class
of
society
25
that
we
have
seen for
many
a day."
A
more
personal
reaction,
and one
which
suggests the
main
reason for the novel's success, is found in a
letter
of
Edward
Fitzgerald,
who
became
a devoted Trollope reader: "I
have
been
very glad to
find
I could take to a novel again, in
Trollope*s
Barchester
Towers,
etc.: not
perfect,
like
Miss Austftn,
but then so
much
wider scope: and
perfect
enough
to
make
me
feel
I
know
the people
though
caricatured
or
carelessly
drawn'.'
Fitzgerald
then, impatient of the sensation
fiction
of the day,
was glad to
find
the
slim
ranks of the domestic authors^ Joined
by a writer
whose
work
was agreeably
restrained,
yet not
bounded
entirely
by the
drawing
room
or country ball-room.
27
In
his next novel, The
Three
Clerks Trollope turned
23Athenaeum,
May
3.0,1857,p.689.
24=StebbInse.s,
op.cit.,
p.149.
25Westmlnster
Review.,
October,
1857,p.594.
26Wright,t William A., ed.,
Letters
of
Edward
Fitzgerald.
London»
Macmillan and Co.,Limited, 1901, vol.2, p. 14.
27Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Three
Clerks: A Novel, 3
vols.,,
London,
Bentley, 1858.
his
bade
on Barchester and used: material
largely
autobiog-
raphical.
He refused to
sell
it to
Longman
on the
half-profit
system,
feeling
that
thie
success of Barchester
Towers
warran-
ted
more
immediate
cash
reward
for his new
work,
and' the
man"-"
^script,
was
finally
bought
by Bentley; for
£250.
Critically,
the new
work:
was not nearly so well received. In October of
2B5&
the National.
Review
ran a long
article
on "Mr. Trollope*s
28
Novels," with praise for The Tfarden and, Barchester
Towers,
but a decided coolness
towards
The
Three
Clerks. In discuss-
ing
It the writer
sounded
the
first
note of a chorus
which
was to
grow
in
volume
and
monotony
until
TrollopeTs death,
"...a writer so
prolific
as Mr. Trollope
must
write in a
hurry,,."29
But if
tlaose
who had delighted In Barchester
Towers
found The
Three
Clerks disappointing, they
were
more
than re-
paid
by the Barsetshire novel
which
followed close
after
It
30
in
the
same
year, Doctor-
Thorne.
In his own
life-time
this
was by far the
most
popular of all Trollopers novels, running
to
fifteen
editions
by 1875. A
chle;f
reason for its great
success was probably expressed by a reviewer in the
Athenaeum.
"Mr. Trollope has a
real
sense of
fun..•*We
can
promise
a
hearty laugh to all who undertake "Doctor
Thorne",
a laugh.*.
not
cynical
and
cruel,
but hearty and sympathetic:, and there
31
are so few
books
nowadays
that
make
us laugh."' The National
28Natlonal
Review.
October. 1858, pp.
416-435.
29ibid,
p.427.
^Trollope,,
Anthony,
Doctor
Thome:
A Novel., 3 vols.,London,
6hapman
and
Hall,
1858..
51Athenaeum,
June
5,1858,
p.719.
- 9 -
Review,
however,
In the
article
referred to
above,
maintained
sternly
that since Trollope was writing too
fast,
Doctor
Thorne>"...though
It
will
perhaps
be a great a favourite
with
most
ordinary novel readers,...is far
inferior
to Its pre-
decessors
as a
work
of art." .
Doctor
Thome
was finished in
Egypt,
where
Trollope
was
engaged
in negotiating a postal treaty, and
immediately
33
afterwards
he
began
to write The
Bertrams.
It was sold to
Chapman
and Hall for the
same
amount
as
Doctor
Thorne,£400
>
and
while
the publishers
undoubtedly
did not lose any
money
on the
venture
after the extraordinary
success
of
Doctor
Thome,
The
Bertrams
was a definite
failure
with
the public;
34
Not
even
TrollopeTs friends
spoke
well of It,,
though
the
reviewers
were
enthusiastic,
even
in the National
Review,
which
felt
that "In its leading characters
this
novel
shows
greater
breadth
and
depth
of imaginative
power
than
any other
35
of Mr. Trollope's
works...."
Much
the
same
can be said of Castle
Richmond,
which
followed in 1860. The
reviewers
liked
this
new
Irish
novel,
but popularly Trollope
maintains
that "Castle
Richmond,
certainly
37
was not a success."
The
Bertrams
had
been
written
while
Trollope was on
his
travels, and
reflects
this
fact.
The
Athenaeum
review
com-
plained that
"...it
is fatiguing to be obliged to travel
when
32National
Review,
loc. cit.,p.431.
33Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Bertrams:
A
Novel.
3 vols.,
London,
Chapman
and
Hall,
1859.
34Trollope,
Auto.,
p.115.
35Nationai
Review.
April,1859,
p.565.
36Trollope,
Anthony,
Castle
Richmond:
A^
Novel,
3
vols#,London,
Chapman
and
Hall,1860.
37Trollope,
Auto..p.142.
- 10 -
one
wants
to remain at
home,
.. .to be taken, to the East twice
in
one novel, passes permission with the
most
patient
reader^
Castle
Richmond's
Irish,
settings
did not please
either,
for
Barsetshire
had
already
cast
the
spell
which tyrannizes over
Trollope's
non-Bar
set
works
even
now.
On. the whole,
however,
Doctor
Thorne
managed
to
carry
along these comparative
failures
on the
wave
of its own
success,
since all three
appeared
within two years. The
credit
side
was bolstered,too,by the
first
of Trollope's
travel,
books,
the
still
delightful
The
West
Indies and the,
59
Spanish
Main,, which was
published
In 1859 and
highly
praised
40 41 42
in The
Athenaeum
, the
Atlantic
Monthly
, Blackwood's
43 A
A
the National
Review
, and the
Westminster
Review."
Trollope
was to
make
a habit of turning his post
office
travels
to
account in
this
manner,
especially
when
the countries
visited
were
particularly
interesting
to the
British
public
at the time.
By 1859 Trollope was in
truth
an.
established
ani
successful
author as well as a valuable
civil
servant. He was
assured of a
public
for his
work,
and was well thought of by
the
critics,
though
they
were
already beginning to
distrust
the
quality
of such a
prolific
writer's
work.
But In October of
1859 two
letters
reached
Trollope,
one from Smith and
Elder,
the publishers of the new
Cornhill
Magazine,
and the other from
its
editor,
Thackeray.
Smith
and Elder
offered
£1000
(MOO
more
58Athenaeum,March
26,1859,p.420.
39Trollope,Anthony, The
West
Indies and the Spanish
Main,
1
vol«,
London,
Chapman
and
Hal1,1859.
4:0At
henaeum,
November
5,1859,
p.1t«f.
41
Atlantic
Monthly,
March
1860.,pp..375-378.
4:2 Blackwood's, Sept
ember
,1862.,
pp. 37 2-39 0.
45National Review,
January,1860,p.527.
-^Westminster"Review,
January, 1860,
pp.289
- 290.
- 11 -
than
Castle
Richmond
had brought) for the copyright of a
new three-volume novel to
come
out
serially
in
their
new
magazine;
and Thackeray's,
letter
was a
warm
personal urging
that
Trollope
accept the
offer.
The only
drawback'
was-
that
the
publishers
must
have
the
first
part by
December
12.
Trollope
had never yet published any part of a
work,
before he
had completed the whole, but in
this
case be broke his
rule.
In
view of the greatness of the occasion. The
publisher
wanted
"...an-English
tale,
on
English
life,
with a
clerical
45
flavour,,"
and to
this
order
Trollope
produced Framley Par-
46
sonage.
The
serial
was a great success: "...the
work
from
the
first
to the
last
was popular, - and was
received
as it
went
on with
still
increasing
favour by both
editor
and
pro#-
prietor
of the
magazine."
Part of its success was
bound
up
in
the
popularity
of the new
periodical
Itself,
and Mrs.
Browning's exclamation, "How
good
this
*
Cornhill
Magazine* Is!
48
Anthony
Trollope
is
really
superb .»." probably would
have
ex-
pressed
the general
feeling
of readers towards the
Cornhill
and its
first
serial.
The success of
this
novel, and the
association
with
"kne
Cornhill
was rewarding both
financially
and
socially.
Trollope
became
a part of the
London
literary
world, being
made
a
member
of the
Carrick
Club in 1861 and of the
Athenaeum
three years
later.
The years from 1860. to 1867
were
a time of
security
and ever-growing success as an author.
'^Trollope
,Aufco.
sf>.130.
^Trollope,
Anthony,
Framley Parsonage, 3
vols.,
ill.MillaiS1/?,.
London,
Smith, Elder,1861
(published
first
in the
Cornhill
Magazine, January 1860 -
April
1861.)
^Trollope,
Auto.,
p.131.
48Kenyon,
E.G.,ed.,
The
Letters
of
Elizabeth
Barrett
Browning,
.New York., The
Macmillan
Tfbmp'ahy,
1910,
p.397
.
~ 12 -
From
1861 on Trollope's novels often
appeared
first
In
monthly
numbers
and
then
in
book
form.
Early in
this
year Fr
amity
Parsonage
was
brought
out In three
vol-
umes,
and the only other Trollope
work
to
appear
that year
was a
collection
of previously published short stories,Tales
49 "SO
of All Countries' . In the
first
part of 1862 Or
ley
Farm
and the Struggles, of
Brown,
Jones,
and
Robinson
were
pub-
lished,
the
first
in parts and the
second
in The:
Cornhill,
while Trollope was in
America
gathering material for his
new
travel
book.
Orley
Farm
was we11-liked; years
later
Trollope
points out that.
"Most
of those
among
my friends who
talk
to me now
about
my novels, and are
competent
to
form
an
opinion on the: subject say that,
this
is the best I
have
52
written...."
but only Trollope had a
good
word
for
Brown,
Jones,
and
Robinson;
"I think there is
some
good,
fun in It,
but I
have
heard
no one else express
such
an opinion"5?3 It
was
Indeed
such
a flat failure
that
Smith
an& Elder,
though
they had
bought
the copyright, did
riot
re-issue the story In
book
form
at'a
time
when
Trollope*s
name
would
have
sold
almost
anything. Yet
even
such,
a
performance
as
this dull
attempt
at a
satire
could not
harm,
its author
much
in 1862,
when:
...Mr.
Trollope has
become
almost
a national
institution.
The
Cornhill
counts
its readers
by
millions,
and.
it'is
to his contributions- in
4sTrollope,
Anthony,
Tales of All Countries, 1
vol*,London,
Chapman
and Hall,18610
50-Troll.ope
,
Anthony,
Or
ley
Farm.,
2
vols.,
ill
.,
London,
Chapman
and
Hall,1862^(Originally
published in
shilling
parts,1861.)
SlTrollope,Anthony,. The Struggles of
Brown,Jones
and
Robinson,
1
YoL,ill.,
London,Smith,Elder,187Cy(Originally published in
the Cornhill,1861.)
52TrolTope,
Auto.,
p.152,
55Trollope.AuTo.,.p.146.
- 13 -
ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred
that
the
reader
first
betakes himself. So great Is his
popularity,
so
familiar
are his
chief
charac-
ters
to his country men, so wide-spread Is the
Interest
felt
about his
tales
that
they necess-
arily
form
part
of the
common
stock in trade with
which the
social
commerce
of the day is
carried
on. 54
His
next
offering
to
this
eager
circle
of readers,
North America.55 had a
mixed
receipt
ion,
since
Trollope
had
allied
himself
firmly
to the Northern cause.
Most
of the
reviewers
approved of his
efforts,
and endorsed the
baok:
as
the
work,
of a
sensible
man
well
aware
of the
limits
of his
56
powers,
but
BIackwood's
maintained
sternly
that
"...his
advocacy, useless to the North, is
damaging
to himself...)
he has contracted a
kind
of moral
squint....This
will
Impair
his
credit
with his
English
audience; while the voracious;
vanity
of his Northern
clients
will
be far from
satisfied
with
the
amount
of panegyric which the conscience of the
57
pleader
will
permit him to
award."
The
book
seems
to
have
been
widely read, and was
regularly
reissued
four
times be-
tween
1862 and
1868..
Even Charles
Reade
promised to read it
on
James
Field's
recommendation,"...since you
tell
me It is
endurable.
I had no
Intention
of reading it otherwise,
54
•
National.
Review.
January 1862, p.28 Cfteview of Orley
Farm.)
55Trollope,
Anthony,
North
America»
2
vols.,
London,
Chapman
and
nail,
1862.
56
'
Athenaeum.
May
24,1862,
p.685;
Dublin
University
Magazine.
July
1862, pp. 75ff ;Frazer's Magazine. August
,1862,
pp.250-264;
National
Review,July
1862,p.
201; Westminster
Review»
October
1862,
pp.536
- 537.
^Blackwood's,
September,
1862,p.374.
-
14 -
58
or
anything
else
the man.
writes.
He is
mediocrity incarnate."0
Matthew
Arnold did! read
it,
judging
by a
reference
in a
letter
59
twenty-one
years
later.
But
a
ponderous two-volume book
of
travel,
and
even
60
the
charming
novel Rachel
Ray did not
really
meet
the
public?:
s
demand.
Rachel
Ray was a
resounding success with
the
reviewers,
even
the
Westminster --Review
falling
a
victim
to Its
delicate
61
domesticity,
but not set In
Barsetshire,
It was
overshadowed
62
by
The
Small
House
at
Allington
which
had
begun
its
run In
the
Cornhill
of
September,1862.
The
publication
of
this
novel
marks
the
high point
of
Trollope's
critical
reputation
and
popular success during
his
own
life-time.
As a
serial
it
appa;?-
rently
caused considerable
stir,
for
according
to the
Athenaeum
"...many
readers
at the moment
would have
rashly
offered
to
forfeit
three
weeks
in the
month,
if
they
might
thus;
have
.
63
learnt
the
progress
of the
story
a
little
further
ahead."
After
the
fiasco
of
Brown.
Jones,
and
Robinson,
The
Small
House
at
Allington
redeemed
Trollope's reputation with
the
proprietor
of the
Cornhill,
while its heroine
"Prig
as
she
was,...made her way
into
the
heart
of many
readers, both
g" • • . -
58Quoted
In
Elwin,
Malcolm,
Charles
Reade,London,Jonathan Cape,
1934,p.23.7.
•
59Russell
George,W.E..Letter?
of Matthew Arnold.1848-1888.London,
Macmillan
and!
Co;,1895,
vol3,p.247.
GOTrollope,Anthony, Rachel
Ray: A
Novel,,2 vols.,London,Chapman
and Hall,1863.
6IWestminster
Review,
January,
1864, pp.291-293.
62Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Small
House
at
Allington,
2
vola,ill.
Mlllais,London,
Smith,Elder,1864.(Published
in the
Cornhill
1862-1864).
Properly speaking,
this
is not a
Bar set novel
(cf.
Auto,p.253)
,
for
Allington
is
just
over
the
county border,
-
but the
frame
of
reference is; Barsetshire Society.
65Athenaeum. March 26,1864,p.437.
- 15 -
.66
young and old; so
that,
from
that
time to
this,
I have been
continually
honoured with
letters,
the
purport
of which has
64
always been to beg me to marry
Lily
Dale to Johnny
Eames."
The
story
was
published
in
book
form in 1864 and
given
long
and
generally
favourable
reviews in the
press.
The American
periodicals
were
particularly
enthusiastic,
partly
perhaps
because "Mr.
Trollope...
has
...won
the
especial
regard
of
Americans from
his;
honest though
unsuccessful
attempt to
65
gain
some
insight
into
American
institutions."
The one
complaint
made
over and" over
again,
however,
was
that
the
character
of the hero, John
Eames
was, at
best,
"unattractive','
67
and at worst
"asinine."
To readers who had
come
to expect
that
a
Trollope
novel
would always end
happily
with wedding
bells
pealing
and
all
loose
ends
neatly
tied,
it
seemed
that
The Small
House
at
Allington
was
unfinished
and!
required
a
sequel.
But once
again,
as In The Three
Clerks,
Trollope
refused
to
stay
within
the
bounds
of Bar
set
shire
and produced two
works
that
were
frankly
68
experimental..
The
first
of
these*
Can You
Forgive
Her ?
departed
In
several
ways
from the
general
type expectedlby
Trollope's
devoted
readers.
In the
first
piace,although
the
central
situation,
a young
woman
hesitating
between
two
lovers,
64Trol.lope,
Aufeo.. pp.
165-164.
..
65North
American Review,
July,
1864,p.292.
66Westminster Review, July,1864,p.252. ..
67North
American Review, July,1864,p.294.
68Trollope,
Anthony, Can You
Forgive
Her ? 2
vols.,
Lond on
*
Chapman
and Hall,1864.
16-
was
familiar
enough,
the
character
of the
young
woman was
decidedly
unusual.
Alice
Vavasor
is not one of
TrollopeTs
"dear
little
brown
girls"
who
having
once
given
their
hearts
are
faithful
to
death.
She is
older than
the
average
Trollo|f-
pian
heroine, being twenty-four
at the
opening
of the
talej
quite
independent, both
financially
and
socially;
and
extra-
ordinarily
strong-minded, stubborn,
in
fact.
As
Trollope
him-
self
put
it
"The
character
of the
girl
is
carried
through with
69
considerable
strength, but;
Is not
attractive."
The
same
ob-
jection,
applies
to one of her
lovers,
her
cousin,
George
Vavasor; while
the
other,
John
Grey,
has not
even
"consider-
able
strength"
to
recommend
him.
Both
Trollope
and
his readers
found it
difficult
to
take
much
interest
in
Alice
and her
troubles,
but the
novel
was
always
one of the
authorTs favour-
ites,
since
in
it Plantagenet
Palliser
and the
Lady
Glencora
were
fully
presented for
the
first
time. Unfortunately
the
public
did.
not
delight
in
these
two as
their
creator did,
and
at
least
one
reader,
a
clergyman
and
former devoted follower
wrote
in
some
anger
to ask
if Trollope thought "...that
a
wife
r
i
7
contemplating adultery
was a
character fit
for..
.[.hisj
pages?"
The reviewers treated
the
book
kindly,
praising
Trollope1s
delicate
portraiture
of women, but the
comic
relief
retained
from
the
novel1s
original,
the
rejected
play
The
Noble
Jilt,
wafer
justly
condemned
as
vulgar
and out of key
with
the
^71
Whole.
,
69Trollope,
Auto.,
p.164.
70Trollope,
Auto.,
p.167.
7*
Athenaeum,,September
2,1865,
pp.305-306;Westrainster
Review,
July,1865,pp.284-285.
- 17 -
In
what
is formally the sub-plot, the
Palliser
part
of the story, Can You Forgive Her 2 is a serious
book,
present-
ing
a
difficult
subject
with
delicacy and insight:. In it
Trollope
opens
up a
whole
new
world,
more
sophisticated and less
wholesome
than
Barsetshire, and offering
wider
opportunities for
plots
based
on
what
Mr.
Sadlelr
has
termed
"social
dilemma"
and
""psychological analysis".
With
Can You Forgive Her 2 Trollope
breaks
from
the
Never-Never
land of Barset into
reality.
This
was a less pleasant
domain,
and
many
of his
readers
were
to
become
increasing by loath to enter it
with
him.
72
The
second
book,
Miss
Mackenzie
has no great value
In
itselfi
It is
Important
because
it too
shows
Trollope
attempting
to
break
out In new
paths.
In the
first
place, he
refused to spin a
slight
tale
out to three
volumes.
The
Dublin University
Magazine
reviewer
approved
strongly of
thlst
"Miss
Mackenzie
is
worked
out within the
compass
of two
volumes,
73
and the interest is
enhanced
by
this
compactness."
The
novel's
heroine was
even
less
promising
than
Alice
Vavasor,
being a spin'
ster
of
thirty-five
whom
Trollope describes as "...a very
unat#-
74
tractive
old
maid
who was
overwhelmed
with
money
troubles^...."
Miss
Mackenzie
herself,
however,
came
off well
enough,
but the
Westminster
Review
maintained
that the
book's
"...pictures of
75
human
nature
distorted by
vulgarity...
£arej
simply offensive."
What
was "cleverness" and "perception"
when
applied to Barset-
72Trollope,
Anthony,
Miss
Mackenzie,
B vols.,
London,
Chapman
and
Hall,
1865. _.-
75Dublin University-Magazine, May
1865,p.576.
74Trollope,
Auto..p.172-
'
^Westminster
Review,
July,
1865,p.284.
- 18 -
shire
has already
become
"too
faithful
description-"76
In the spring of
this
year,
1865, Trollope was
busy
helping to establish The Fortnightly
Review,
which
was to be
characterized by
"freedom
of
speech,
combined
with
personal
responsibility,"77
"flf all the
serial
publications of the day,
it
probably
is the
most
serious, the
most
earnest, the least
78 n
devoted
to
amusement,
the least flippant, the least jocose^....
For
this
serious publication
Trollope.was
to
produce
the
first
79
novel. This,
work,
The Bel.ton Estate contains all the In-
gredients for a standard successful Trollope novel. Its
hero-
ine,
Clara
Amedroz,
charming,,
and a lady, hesitates
between
two lovers for chapters; the
surroundings,,
if not
avowedly
Barsetshire, could be traded for
those
of Franvley
Parsonage;
and there is not a
line
in the
whole
to
which
the
clergyman
who was
shocked
by
Lady
Glencora
eould object. In shortj
Trollope played safe and
wrote
for the new
magazine
a novel
that should
have
been
a sure-fire success. Instead, it was
greeted
with
luke-warm
reviews
and involved in the semi-failure
80
of the new
magazine
in its early
days.
Before
The Belton
Estate had
completed
Its run in the Fortnightly the
review
had
ceased
to be
eclectic
and had
become
"an
organ
of liberalism,
81
f^ee-thlnklng, and
open
enquiry." The Belton Estate was
hardly hearty
enough
food for the subscribers to
such
a
magazine;
Trollope,
Auto.,
p.172.,
Trollope,
Auto.„
pp.173-174.
Trollope,
Anthony,
The Belton Estate, 3 vols.,
London,Chapman
and
Hall,
1866. (published in The Fortnightly
Review.
May-Dec.,,
Trollope,
Auto.,
pp.17 2-174 for details of the organization
and collapse of the
original
Fortnightly
Review.
Trollope,
Auto..
p.174.
- 19 -
the
Athenaeum
said that
"...the
verdict of periodical read-
ers was
unfavourable."82
Some
idea of
what
that verdict may
probably
have
been
can be
gained
from
the
review
of the
book
done
by one
of the bright
young
writers for the
Hation
of the mid-sixties,
Henry
James,
who
felt
that "Mr. Trollope is simply
unable
to
S3
depict a
mine!
In any
liberal
sense
of the
word."
To him
" 'The Belton Estate* Is a stupid
book:;
and in a
much
deeper
sense
than
that of being simply
dull,
for a
dull
book
is
always
a
book
that
might
have
been
lively.
A
dull
book
is a
failure.
Mr. Trollope's story is stupid and a success. It
is
essentially, organically, consistently stupid; stupid In
direct
proportion to Its strength. It is
without
a single
idea. It Is
utterly
Incompetent
to the
primary
functions of
, 84
a
book,
of
whatever
nature,
namely
- to
suggest
thought."
We
have
already
seen
that the high point of Trollope's
success
with
critics
and public was
reached
with
the
public-
nation of The
Small
House
at Allington In 1864. The
financial
high-point
came
In 1866,
when
he received £
2800
for The
85
Claverlngs; a short story^
about
the length of
Framley
Parson-
age,
which
appeared
in the
Cornhill,
1866-1867.
Generally
accepted
today
as one of Trollope's
finest
works^
The Claverlngs
also
found
favour
with
the
contemporary
reviewers,
though
the
oo
Athenaeum,
February
3,1866,
p.166.
83The
Nation,
Jamuary
4,1866,p.21.
Q^jbid., p.22
85Trollope,
Anthony,
The Claverlngs. 2 vols.,
ill.,
London,Smith,
Elder,1867^tfublished in the
Cornhill.1866-1867).
- 20
first,
notes of
kindly
condescension are heard amidst the.
86
praise.
If
we take
Trollope*s
evidence in the Autobiography,
87
the
story
gained no great success with the
public;
and the
fact
that
it was
four
years
after
the
first
edition
before
the
book
was
reprinted,
a longer gap than is found for any
other
of
Trollope*s
important
works
up to
this
point
except
his first
four
and the
unhappy
Brown,
Jones,, and Robinson,,
indicates
that
his
memory
served him
well
on
this
point.
The
Claverlngs
has
several
of the
qualities
which we
have
seen, objected to in
earlier
Trollope
novels in one quarter
or
another. Readers
like
the clergyman who was shocked by
Can You Forgive
Her?
must
have
been
alienated
entirely
by
The
Claverlngs,
which Is the
story
of a.
young
woman
who
Jilts
a man. to
marry
openly for
money
and
position,
and then,
when
she is
free,,
does
her best to break, up an
engagement
whi.ch her
former
lover
has entered
upon
during the
meantime.
The
Fort-
nightly
Review
critic
objected to the
humorous
characters,
89
as the
National
Review
writer
had in the case of Orley
Farm
^
but with
less
justice.
Though
some
may
feel
that
Moulder and
his
companion
bagmen
are
weak:
Dickens, Captain Boodle, Archie
Clavering,
and Sophie Gordeloup are all
Trollope,
and presented
in
the round.
Some
of
their
scenes are sheer
farce,
as
when
Sophie
makes
her
last
entreaty on the way
back
from the
Isle
90
of
Wight,
but it is very
amusing
farce
and
comes
off
well.
8**>
Athenaeum,
June
15, 1867
t.p.785;
Fortnightly
Review
June,1867,pp.771-772;
Blackwood's,
September
,1867,pp.275-278.
87Trollope,
Auto.,
pp.179-180
*
88FortnightIy•Review,
loc.cit.
8%ationaI
Review,
January,
1862,p.40
.
9°The
Claverlngs,
Chapter
XXIX.
-
21 -
Many
readers
may
well
have
found such scenes
"low",
however,
and
certainly
many
would
have
felt
that
other elements
were
"unpleasant":
A
wife
ill-treated
by a
brutal
husband,
and an
unedlfying
mid-Victorian confidence
man,
Sophie's brother,
Count
Pateroff.
Reviewers
had
sometimes
complained
that
Trollope
91
kept repeating his characters from
book
to
book,
hut
they could
have
no
such complaint against
The*
Claverings,
which
mentions;
not a
single
familiar
name.
There
Is no
reason
to
suppose^though,
that
novel readers
of the
sixties
objected
to
meeting
the
worthies
of
Barsetshire again
and
again,
any
more
than
their
contemporary
counterparts
mind
the
constant
reappearance
of
whole
families
In the
works
of
Bar-set's pre-
sent
chronicler,
Mrs.
Thirke11.
With
such readers
The
Small
House
at
Allington,
a
"nice"
story
about
a
"nice"
girl,
had
had great success,
and it Is
understandable
that
to
them
The
Claverings
was
rather
a
disappointment.
In
the
eight
years
1858 - 1866
Trollope
had
pro-
duced
five
complete successes (Doctor
Thorne,
The
West
Indies_
Framley Parsonage,, Or
ley
Farm,
and The
Small
House
at
Alling-
ton) ;
five
partial
successes (North America, Rachel
Ray, Can
You Forgive
Her
??The
Claverings
and The
Bertrams); three near-
failures
(Castle
Richmond,
Miss Mackenzie,
and The
Belton
Estate);
and
one
complete
failure,,
(Brown,
Jones,
and
Robinson)
•
In
addition
to
these
he had
published four
ephemeral
collections,
Westminster
Review,
July,
1861,
p. 282, and"
July,
1864,p.252
- 82 -
92
Tales of All Co
tui
tries, Hunting Sketches, Clergymen, of the
95
Church of
Inland,
ana
Travelling Sketehes^and a considerable
number of periodical articles. He had, In short, earned a
name by merit, and kept It constantly
before
the public by his
quick rate of production. At this
stage
he was more and more
struck by what he felt to be an injustice in literary affairs,
the
fact
that "...a name
once
earned carried with it too much
Q5
favour."" He felt that
"...aspirants
coming up below me
.might do work as good as mine, and probably much better work,
96
and yet
fall
to
have
it appreciated."
To
test
this idea Trollope determined to establish
a second literary Identity, and to
this
end published two
97.
novels
anonymously
In Blackwood*s,
Nina
Balatka in 1866,
98 ~ ' ~
&n®-
L.inda
Tressel
the
following
year.
Neither had much
success.
while both
were
recognized
as
Trollope*s
work by
seasoned
ob-
99
servers. Less, than five hundred copies of
Nina
Bala
tka
had
been sold in the first five and a half months; after publication,
an<^
Linda
Tress el, though Blackwood had higher hopes:, did little
bettero^"^ Trollope
became
convinced that English
readers
would
read his work only if he put his .name to it
Q4>
Trollope
j,
Anthony,
Hunt
ing
Ske t che s, 1
vol*,
London,.Chapman
and Hal1,1865.
9^Trollope, Anthony, Clergymen of the Church of England1.
vol*,
London,
Chapman and
Hall,
1866..
^Trollope, Anthony
j,
Travelling Sketches, 1 vol., London,
Chapman and Hall,1866.
9§Trollope;,. Auto, p. 185.
"^Troilope,
Auto.,p.186.
^Trollope, Anthony,
Nina
Balatka, 2 vols., Edinburgh and London,
Blackwood, 1866
thirst
published anonymously in Blackwood'
s,1866)
98Trollope, Anthony,
Linda
Tressel., 2 vols,,. Edinburgh and London,
Blackwood's,
1867^(3tirst
published anonymously In Blackwood's,
1867)
99Bv
Hut
ton.
In the Spectator;
*4r*
Trollope , Auto .p. 186: and Henry
James? Nation,JuneHtSjiSfe,pg*494-495. "
LOOSadleir
^MIc'h'ael, Trollope,A^Commentary, LondonConstable: and
Co.Ltd..^
- 23 -
Nina
Balatka had
originally
been
offered to
George
Smith,
but he,
perhaps
smarting
still
from
Brown>Jones?and
Robinson,
and safely in possession of the copyright of a new.
two-volume
Trollope
work,
had refused the
little
anonymity.
The new novel, The Last Chronicle of
B&rset,1^1appeared
in
1866 and 1867 in
monthly
numbers,
and was
aypopular
as any of
102
Its
Barset predecessors,
while
critics
praised the increased
seriousness of the
theme
and the extraordinary subtlety of the
principal
portrait,
that of Mr.
Crawley.
The
book
is
indeed
an
extraordinary
achievement,
having
all the subtlety of
motive
and situation of Can You Forgive Her _? and all the tangible .
setting^
and
charm
of the
earlier
Barset novels.
Though
Trollope himself considered
this
his
finest
work,
on the
whole,
he was
always
troubled by
what
he considered a
fundamental
flaw
in
the plot, the
fact
that Mrs. Arabin had supplied her friend's
wants
by tendering the
cheque
of a
third
person,
and that a man
103
like
Mr.
Crawley
should forget how he had
come
by it.
Trollope's objection is exactly
what
we
might
expect,
as his
main
aim is
always
consistent portraiture, and
these
actions
cannot
be reconciled to the characters involved as
they
have
been
developed
throughout
the series. The
reviewers
were
not so troubled, but
were
concerned
by the
fact
that
this
was
to be the
last
Barset chronicle.
Presumably
reflecting
public
taste
^.at
this
point,
Blackwood's
reviewer
howled
in protest
1Q1Trollope,
Anthony,
The Last Chronicle of Barset. 2 vols.,
ill.,
London,,
Smith,
Elder, 1867' (published In
monthly
parts, 1866-
... 1867)
102Cf.
Athenaeum.
August
3,1867,p.141;
Blackwood's.September.
1867.
p.277;
Westminster
Review.
July,1867,p.309.
105Trollope,Auto.„
pp. 250 - 251.
- 24
to
the
effect
that readers
were
In no hurry to be
done
with
old friends;
that
killing
Mrs, Proudie was sheer
murder;
and
that
readers had
been
cheated
about
Lily
Dale, who
still.
writes herself
"Lily
Dale, Old
Maid"
at the end of
this
long
104
novel.
Once
again in
fact,
as in The Small
House
at
Alling-
ton, Trollope had written his own
book
and declined to
mani-
pulate all his characters
into
a
final
tableau,
superficially
pleasing:
but fundamentally Inconsistent with his
people's
natures as he had
drawn
them.
The Last Chronlcle of Barset
marks
the end of a
phase
In Trollope's writing career. Its
main
concern
is with
a psychological
problem,,
but the
setting
is
still
the ordered
civilized
society of Barset. It is the
last
of Trollope's
novels
where
difficulties,,
ranging
from
Mr.
Harding's
struggle
to
make
the
right
decision,
through
the purely
financial
diffi-
culties
of
Mary
Thome
and
Frank
Gresham,,
and
finally
to the
tragic
dilemma
of Mr.
Crawley,are
played out against the
back-
ground
of a
rural
England
in
which
all is
more
or
less
still
all
right
with the
world.
In all of Trollope's
major
works
from
this
time
on his people,
good
and
bad^move
against a
setting
which
becomes
Increasingly
unhealthy
and
materialistic.
This
change
reaches
its height In the
bitter satire
The Way We Live
Now, but its
symptoms
are quite
apparent
in the
work
that followed
105
The Last Chronicle of Barset,
Phineas
Finn.
^^Blackwood's,
September,
1867,p.277/.
105Trollope,
Anthony,
Phineas
Finn. The
Irish
Member.2
vols.,111.,
London„
Virtue,
1869
(first
published in St. Paul's
Magazine.
1867-1869)
v
- 25 -
The
first
of the
truly
"Parliamentary Novels" was
apparently
more
successful than Its author had: expected.
Written
after
Trollope's
failure
at the Beverley
election*
the
book
was designed as a
means
of" expressing himself
politi-
cally,
but so constructed as to please the general reader as
well:
"If I write
politics
for my own
sake,
I
must
put in
love
and
intrigue,
sooial
Incidents, with
perhaps
a
dash
of
T 0 fi
sport,
for the benefit of my readers" But in
spite
of
this
thought
for the tastes of his readers, Trollope
succeeded
In
pleasing
only one
circle
of
them,"...the
men who
would
have
*
lived
with
Phineas
Finn...,and the
women
who
would
lived
with
107„
Lady
Laura Standlshr other readers may
have
agreed with the
critic
of the
Contemporary
Review^
who considered the
book
to
be "...not
even
among
the best of Mr. Trollope's novels^...,"
and
complained
that not only did the story lack
"...his
wonder-
ful
gift
of sketching the
cleric
of the day, and the
power
of
pathos
which
he
sometimes
puts
forth5.'..."
hut that "The
whole
of
the
Lady
Laura story
comes
as
near
cynicism as Mr. Trollope
-.108
ever
goes...*.'
"The
power
of pathos" was
certainly
not lacking In
the
tireless
novelist's next offering^the extremely long novel
109
He
Knew
He Was Right. Trollope himself,
however,
believed
that
he had
failed
In his
attempt
to; create
sympathy
for
Lewis
110
Trevelyan, and
felt
that the story was "nearly altogether had,"
IQ6Trol,lqpe,
Auto.,
p. 289.
107jbid.
!Q8Contemporary Review^
September,1869,
pp.
142-145,.
109Trollope,
Anthony,
He
Knew
He Was
Right.2
vols.,
ill.,
London,
Strahan, 1869
(.first,
published In
weekly
numbers
>1868.-1869.).
110Trollope,
Auto.,
p.295.
- 26 -
r
a
verdict
with which the Westminster
Review
heartily
concurred.
Curiously,
this
eritic
denounced
the
hook
on the. grounds
that
Trollope
had
long;
ago
shown
his
full
bag of
tricks
and was now
displaying
signs
of exhaustion. There Is no
earlier
Trollope
novel
that
bears the
slightest
resemblance to
this
analysis
of
the
destruction
of
first
a marriage and
eventually
a man.
by mxsunderstanlng and obtuse
pride.
Its secondary heroine,
Nora Rftwley,, is the
first
of his
realistic
young
women
very
much
aware
of the
desirability
of marrying
well,
while in Miss
Wallachia
Petrie
and the Spaldings we
meet
the
first
of
Trol-
lope
fs Americans abroad.
Becoming
more
explicit,
the
same
reviewer
complained
that
Trollope
had
made
a
sorry
attempt at
describing
Exeter, and
that
only Thackeray
could
have
drawn
Miss Stanhury
successfully.
The
implication
seems
to be
that
old
Trollope
has reached the
point:
where
he cannot even
play
his
trump
card, the Cathedral Close, with any success.
While Phineas
Finn
had
been
a
partial
success, In
that,
it had reached a
section
of the.
public
likely
to apprec-
iate
itf
He
Knew
He Was Right; was a
failure;
since,
being;
apparently
"just
the new
Trollope
novel", it was of
Interest
only
to the devoted, who "...probably
consist
of every
young
lady
in England and the
Colonies^.,"112
Had the
bright
people
who
were
In 1869
praising
Balzac deigned to read the novel they
would
have
found it very
much
to
their
taste;
but;
what
devotee
of
stark
French
realism
would
have
bothered with
Anthony
Trol-
lope
?
HlF&stmlnater
Review,
July,
1869. pp. 302 - 305.
112Westmlnster
Review?,
July,
1869, p. 302.
-
27 -
The
failure
of Ete Knew He Was.
Right
marked;
the be-
ginning
of
Trollope's decline
as a
popular
novelist.
As Mr.
Sadleir
has
pointed out, "For
the
first
time
Trollope
had
obviously
been
paid
beyond
his
value.
—The
knowledge:
perco^t-
fated
through
publishers'
offices
and
from
desk
to
editorial
desk
that
the two
latest
Trollope
novels
had not
earned
their
keep.
Automatically
and in
response
to
this
disquieting
rumour'
his
estimated
value
as a
book
or
serial
proposition
checked.^13
Another
factor
which
eventually
harmed
Trollope's reputation
greatly
was
his alliance
with
Virtue,
the
printer
who
became
publisher
of St.
Paul's
Magazine
of
which
Trollope
was
editor.
Virtue's
sally
Into publishing
was
affailure,
and in the
gen-
eral
liquidation
of
assets Trollope
was
necessarily involved.
Through
the
sale
of
copyrights
he
became
connected
with
such
firms
as
Strahan,
and
Strahan's
associates,
Daldy,
Isbister,
and
later,
Isbister. This
was bad, for
their imprints
lowered
his
reputation,
and
"...he
became
primarily
a
writer
of
novels
for
serial^
of
novels
whose
subsequent
book
issue
was
less
im-
portant
than
their
magazine
appearances..
.in
an
author
of
Trol-
114
lope's capacity
and
achievement..a
sure
mark
of
decadence."
Perhaps
the
feeling
in the
air that Trollope
was no
longer
the
valuable property
he had
once
been
prompted
George
Smith
in 187Q to
publish
the
long-deferred
Brown,
Jones,
and
Robinson
in
book
form,
before Trollope's
name on
its spine
would
automatically
ensure
a
book's
neglect rather
than
a
still
reason-
113Sadleir,
Trollope, pp.
29Q - 291.
114ibid.,
p.29a.
-
28 -
ably
good
sale.
Whatever
the
reason
for
the
publication,
it
did
untold
harm,
to a
reputation
now
none
too
firm. Since
the
effort
had
been
felt
to be a
mistake
when it
first
ran in the
Cornhill.
when
Trollope
was the
rising
.star
of the day,
its
re-
appearance
at
this
point
merely
served
to
push
the
author
once
and!
for
all
from
his
perch
of
eminence.
All
In
all,
187Q was
disastrous
for
Trollope.
His
115
long novel
for
that
year^The
Vicar
of
Bullhamptony
"...was
written
chiefly
with
the
object
of
exciting
not
only
pity
but
sympathy
for
a.
fallen
woman, and of
raising
a
feeling
of
for-
116
giveness
for
such
in the
minds
of
other
women."
Unfortunately,
since
the
theme
did
not
appeal
to
his
Barset-minded
followers,
nor
his
cautious
treatment
of it to the
more
"advanced",
Trollope
succeeded
In
pleasing
no one. The
opinion
of the
second
group
may
be
found
in a
non-enthusiastic
and
rather patronizing notice
117
in
the
Athenaeum
;while
a
Blackwood*s
reviewer
inanely
ex-
pressed
the
point
of
view
of the
first:
Why
should
he
have
abandoned
those
earlier,
sweeter,
charming
young
women...to
toss
us
about
with
all
the
doubts
and
tribulations
of
a
Nora
Rowley
or a
Mary
Lowther..
?r
It
is
hard
for
us to say a
word
against
a writer
from
whom we
have
received
so
much
amusement;but
we
must
entreat
him to
consider
his
ways;
-to
take
thought
and
mend
- to go
back
upon
his
original
canons,
and to
free
us
^
bf the
Mary
Lowthers.
The
less
we
hear
about
115Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Vicar
of
Bullhampton.
1
vol,
ill',
London,
Bradbury,
Evans,
1870
(lirst
published
in
monthly
numbers;
1869-
1870,),
noTrollope,
Auto.i.
p.300..
117Athenaeum.
April
30,1870,p.574.
-
29 -
such
people
the
better,
if
there
are, as we^g-
suppose
there are,
such
people
in the
world.
The
volume
of
short
stories
which
followed,
An
119
Editor*s
Tales,
was
generally dismissed
as
"...reading for
sea-side
loungers...land]
%,..hardly
worthy
of the
author,"
though
it
prompted
a
writer
in the
Westminster
Review
to
main-
tain
that Trollope*s characters
"...have
all
some of the
good
heartedness
and
moral
tone
of
their
creator,
and we
feel
that
they
are
fit society
for
even
the
tenderest
and
dearest
of
121
^our friends."
The same
writer
called
Trollope*s
novels
"works
of
art",
and he may
quite possibly
have
been
the
last
person
to do so
until
a
certain revaluation
took
place
at
the
author*s
death.
The
last
Trollope
work
to
appear
in
this
unfortunate
122
year
was The
Commentaries
of
Caesarr
a
little
book
on
which
he
took
the
pains
which
critics
were
always
urging
him to
take
with
his
fiction.
With
what
appears
now as
malicious perverse-
ness
the
critics
attacked
the
book
as a
worthless
piece
of
pre-
sumption.
Xn
this
they
were
no
doubt
prompted,
as
Trollope
suggests,
by "...a
feeling
that
a man who has
spen£
his
life
in
123
writing
English
novels
could
not be
fit
to
write
about
Caesar."
1
^Blackwood's,
May,
1870, pp.
647-648.
119Trollope,
Anthony,
An
Editor*s Tales,
1
voL,London,Strahan,
187Q.
120Athenaeum,
July
23,1870,p.
112. -
l2lYfestmins:ter
Review,
October,
1870,p.524.
122Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Commentaries
of
Caesar,
1
vol^Edinburgh
and
London,
Blackwood,.1870.
123TrolIope,
Auto.,
p. 310.
- 30 -
One
kind
word
came
from
The
Contemporary
Review,
whose
writer
recognised
the modest
purpose
of the
little
book
.and
considered that "...the.
versatile
author
of *
Bar
Chester
. 124
Towers91
has
succeeded
in
this
to him
somewhat
novel task....."
It vail
be
noted,
however,
that
to
this
writer Trollope''is
still
the
successful creator
of
Barsetshire,
and not the
rather
pas.se'
author
whom
critics
more
alive
to
fashion.
seized
an
opportunity
to
snipe
at.
In
the
spring
of 1871
Trollope
set
sail
for
Australia,
characteristically
arranging
a
contract
for a
book
about
the
Colonies before leaving.
While
he was on
his travels three
novels
appeared
in
book
form
which
had
been
written before
he
125
126
left,
Sir
Harry,
Hot
spur
of
Humblethwaite.
Ralph
the
Heir,"
•»
127
and
The
Golden
Lion
of
Granpere
. The
first
of
these
is a
good
novel, Interesting
because
It
shows
the
impact
of a
worldly
wastrelj
Harry
Brandon,
upon
the
decent
society
of
Trollope's
rural
England.
It
enjoyed
a
moderate
success,
and
might
poss-
ibly
have
done
very
well,
had
Trollope published
none
of the
works
that
had come out the
year
before,
Ralph
the
Heir,
xvh
ich
128
Trollope considered
one of the
worst
novels
he
'had
ever
written,
, Ipg
was
not so
happy;
but
The.
Golden
Lion
of
Granpere
which
he
lelt
to
be
far
inferior
to
Nina
Balatka
or
Linda Tressel,
was
well-
liked.
1 P/L
"Contemporary
Review,
September>1870,
p. 314.
--"Trollope
Anthony,
Sir
Harry
Hotspur
of
Humble
thwaite
„
1
vol.,
London,
Hurst
and
Bla.ckett,1871.
126rprollope,
Anthony,
Ralph
the
Heir^
5
vols.,
London,
Hurst
and
Blackett,
1871.
127Troliope,
Anthony,
The Go Men
Lion
of
Granpere,
1
vol.,
London,
Tinsley,1872.
1^8Trol1ope,Auto.,
p.313.
129T.his.
was .the
third,,
novel offered
to
Blackwood
for
anonymous
DUD
lie
at
icon,
in 186
7»
130"*Trol
1
o'nft.Antft.
. rm
P.PP.-P.Q!
- 31 -
If
these
works
did not seriously
weaken
Trollope's
position,
neither did
they
do anything to strengthen it. His
131
next
novel,
however,
The
Eustace
Diamonds
was as great a
success
popularly as anything he had
ever
written, and restored
much
of his public favour; but
even
it did nothing for his
lit-
erary reputation,
which
at
this
point was .apparently
beyond,
the
aid
of
even
such
an obviously
good
piece of
work
as the history
of
Lizzie
Eustace.
Throughout
the
Athenaeum
notice satiety and
thinly-veiled
contempt
are evident,
though
the writer languidly
observed
that
"...this
particular
permutation
of the materials
132
is
effective
enough...."
Two explanations for
this
attitude
might
be offered.. The
first
is that
comedy,
for the
most
part
light
and subtle, but varied by
patches
of
truly
amusing
farce,
was,
like
the
Commentaries
of Caesar-, not Trollope's preserve.
Though
critics
are constantly
complaining
of the flatness and
monotony
of Trollope's novels, and
their
similarity
one to the
other at
this
time,
they
seem
Incapable
of recognizing a new
and successful
departure
Into fresh
fields.
A
second
reason
for
their
disapproval of
this
novel is that it quite lacks Sa two
qualities
highly prized at the
time,
the heroic, and! the morally
deep.
None
of the
works
that followed Kie
Eustace
Diamonds
was of a sort to
capitalize
on that
novel's
popular
success
and.
ensure
a definite return for Trollope to public favour.
When
131
Trollope,Anthony,
The
Eustace
Diamonds.
3 vols,,
London,
Chapman
and:
Hall,
1873^ (published in the Fortnightly
Review
,1871 -
1873).
152Athenaeum,
October
2:6,1872,p.527
.
- 32 -
that
novel had completed. Its run in the
Fortnightly
it was
133
replaced
by
Lady
Anna,
one of the few
Trollope
novels
which
even
the
most
devoted present-day reader
finds
almost imposs-
ible
to
finish,
for the
book
is
dead.
Contemporary
readers
did
not
find
it so, apparently,
since
Trollope
remarks,"In
it;
a
young
girl,
who is
really
a lady of high rank and great
wealth, though in her youth she enjoyed
none
of the
privileges
of
wealth or rank, marries a
tailor
who had
been
good
to her,
and
whom
she had loved
when
she was poor and neglected. A
fine
young
noble
lover
is provided for her, and all the
charms
of
sweet:
living
with
nice
people are
thrown
In her way, in
order
that
she may be
made
to give up the
tailor...
.The
book,
was read, and I was
satisfied.
The horror
which
was expressed
to
me at the
evil
thing
I had
done,
In
giving
the
girl
to the
tailor,
was the strongest testimony I could
receive
of the
154
merits
of the
story."
However,
a
book
that
was simply read
was not
enough
to
follow
up a resounding success
like
The
Eustace
Diamonds.
.
Trollope*
s next published
work
Australia
and New
135
Zealand was far
more
successful
than he had ever expected,
but the success of such a
work
has
little
effect
on the
gen-
eral
popularity
of a
novelist.
To the two thousand people who
bought
out the
first
expensive
edition,the
ponderous
volumes
were
primarily
a
book
about the Colonies, not the new
Anthony
x^Trollope,
Anthony,
Lady
Anna,
2
vols.,
London,Chapman
and
Hall
1874/(published in the.
Fortnightly
Review,18.75-1874).
13%rolIope,
Auto.,pp.
516-517.
135Troilope,Anthony,
Australia
and New Zealand, 8 vols,,London,
Chapman
and Hall,1873.
Trollope.
Australia
and
New
Zealand is
a
book
off the
same
class
as
North America; had it
been
another such readable
delight
as
The
West
Indies and the Spanish
Main
it
would
have
been
of
real
value to Trollope's
popularity
and repu-
tation
at
this
point.
156
Harry Heathcote of Gangoil
was a
popular
story
for
the Christmas trade, regarded
as a
pleasant
change
from
Trollope*s
usual
fields:
"The
story
is too
slight
to add
to
the author's reputation; but it
will
not diminish It, and
Is
1317
at
any
rate,
a
not
unwelcome
variation."
'
It is
interesting
to
note that the reviewers
who
had
been
complaining of the
"photographic
reality"
of
Trollope*s
descriptions
of
their
own
world praised the;
same
technique
when
it was
directed
towards
unfamiliar
scenes.
A
more
important event was the
publication
of Phineas
_
/ 138
g.edu*
in
1874.
This manuscript
Trollope
had
left
with
Chap-
man and
Hall
before
setting
off to
Australia;
but
publication
had
been
delayed. This was unfortunate, for it
meant
that
five
years had passed since Phineas Finn had
come
out.
Artistically
this
is well
enough,
since Phineas has
been
rusticating
in
Ireland
for
some
time
between
the periods of his
history
covered
by the two novels, but
five
years was
a
long time for readers
to
keep
the.
details
of Phineas Finn in
mind.
Harry Heathcote
had
been
a
general success, but
so
minor
a
book
as to
be of
136rQrolIope,
Anthony,
Harry Heathcote
of
Gangoil,
1
vol,,
London,
Sampson,Low,
1874. ...
157Athenaeum%
November
7,1874,p.606.
138Trollope,
Anthony,
Phineas
Redux,
2
vols.,
ilL,
London,
Chapman
and
Hall,1874.
-
34 -
little
importance
to
|rollope
as an
author. Phineas
Redux
is
a
major
work,
but
like
its forerunner appealed
largely
to
"...the
men who
would
have
lived
with Phineas^...,and
the
139
women
who
would
have
lived
with
Lady
Laura...."
Not having appeared
first
as a
serial
and so be-
come
quite
well
known
before Its
publication
as a
book,
Phineas
Redux:
received
a
larger
number
of
press notices than
had
been
usual
for recent
Trollope
novels.
These
reviews
are
all
much
alike,
and
express
the
general
critical
attitude
towards
Trol-
lope
In the
early
seventies.
The
Athenaeum
writer
complains
that
it
is
difficult
to say
anything
new of
Trollope.
He
offers
"...little
to
stimulate
the
Imagination
or
suggest
topics
for
reflection...
but..
.abundance
of the
•fight
kind
of
intell-
ectual
gratification
which
may be
drawn
from seeing
life-like
140
portraits
of
common-place
people," Later
the
writer
speaks
of
these people
as
being "^...as
life-like
and
depressing
as
usual....",
complaining
of
the;
lack
of the
heroic
or
romantic,
and being
especially
hard
on the women,
since
he
feels
that
"...the
absence
of
romance
Is
less
fatal
to a man
than
to a
141
woman....." To
this
reviewer
the
strongest part
of the
book
was.
the
political
satire
describing
the
effects
of the
dis-
establishment
of the
Church,
of
England.
A
more
intelligent
estimate appeared
In the
Atlantic
Monthly,
whose
critic
paid
homage
to
Trollopers
"cleverness"
and then
summed up the
prevailing
critical
Ideas
on the
prolific
159Tr.o.llQPe,
Auto.,p.289.
14
0Athenaeum,
January
10,1874,p.53.
141
ibid.
author
by saying
"There
is nothing but
amusement
to be got
from
Mr. trollope....Great novelists may
tell
the
same
story,
but
they
put a
meaning
between
the
lines
where
Mr. Trollope
leaves a
blank.
They
teach as well as describe. Mr.
Trol-
lope
seems
to catch everything but the
deeper
meaning."
Most
interesting
and revealing of all was a notice
in
the Nation, in
which
Trollope is described as
"...the
most
successful of
literary
artisans,...£whoJ
fixes
to himself a
standard of
literary
excellence
which
he
never
fails
greatly
below;
his standard is exactly that of the so-called
intelli-
gent
reader. He
meets
the
wishes
of that large class of
per-
sons
whose
taste is too
good
to be
satisfied
with
Mi a a.
and not
good
enough
to
enjoy
George
Eliot.WJ-'
Curiously,
the writer
felt
that "A...fault that
will
tell
fatally
against
Mr. Trollope's
lasting
reputation, is that he has not
produced
any of
those
great andl
original
characters that are to be
found
in
the
works
of
Thackeray,
Miss
Bronte,
or
George
Eliot...
throughout
the
whole
of his
works
there is not to fee
found
a
single
character...^
which
is a
permanent
addition to the
world
144
of English
fiction."
He also claims that Trollope
fails
"to
develop
the
growth
of character',' connecting
this
with
his
belief
that" Mr. Trollope lacks
entirely
the
intellectujal
truth-
fulness
which
compels
Thackeray
or
Balaac
to paint the
most
re-
pulsive
persons
or the
most
painful
scenes
in all
their
hideous
reality....The
truth is that Mr., Trollope is
essentially
a
super-
14!
ficial
writer and delights to deal,
with
the outside of things."
148
Atlantic
Monthly
.May.-1874,pp.617-618.
l^Nation,
March
12,1874,p.
174.
- 36 -
The
next
offering of
this;
unromantie
and
superficial
146
writer to " an age
which
worships
common-place"
was a novel
completely
different
from
any he had written before, The Way
147
We Live Now, a
satire
prompted
by
what
Trollope conceived to
T AQ
be "the
commercial
profligacy of the
age.,"
"Upon
the
whole,"
says
.'Trollope,
"I by no
means
look
upon
the
book
as one of my
failures;
nor was it
taken
as a
failure
by the public or the
149
press,'* As far as sales are
concerned
this
is true, since the
novel,
though
originally
published in
numbers,had
run to four
editions
by 1879, The press,
however,
did consider it a
fail-
150
ure, according to the Stebbinses, who are
thoroughly
reliable
when
they
are presenting facts. The
Athenaeum
felt
that Mel-
mottle
",.,requires a
more
powerful
hand
than
Mr. Trollope's,
and the choice of
such
a protagonist
shows
ignorance
on the
151
novelist's
part of the
limits
of his capacities,"
while
the
Westminster
Review,
on one of the rare occasions of recent
years
when
it noticed Trollope at
all,delivered
a
savage
attack,
likening
Trollope to his own
Lady
Carbury,
and
ending
paragraphs
of denunciation
with
"In short, we look in vain for any of
those
152
higher
artistic
touches
that give
life
to a
work
of
fiction,".
153
^ Following The Wgy We Live Now, The
Prime
Minister
146ibid,
147Trollope,
Anthony,
The Way We Live Now, 2 vols., ilL,London,
Chapman
and
Hall,1875y*(«ubiished
in
monthly
numbers,
1874-
1875) . ..
148Trollope,
Auto.,
p.323.
149Trollope,
Auto.,,
p.325.
150On
p.291 of The Trollopes
they
speak
of Trollope as being"...
confronted by an
accumulation
of
unfavourable
reviews
of
The Way We Live Now." .
15IAthenaeum.
June
26,1875,p.851.
152Westminster
Review,
October
1,1875,p.530.
153Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Prime
Minister, 4 vols*,
London,Chapman
and
Hall,
1876.
- 57 -
brings
us to the lowest point of Trollope's career. This
book
had
been
a labour of love, In
which
he had
sought
to
produce
the
final
portrait
of his
ideal
English
gentleman
and
statesman,
but Instead of enjoying the mild popularity of
the other
Palliser
novels.lt
was a
flat
failure
on a
level
with
Brown,
Jones, and
Robinson.
A
rueful
footnote In the
Autobiography
tells
of his disappointment: "Writing
this
note In 1878,
after
a lapse of nearly three years, I am. ob-
liged
to say that, as regards the
public,
The
Prime
Minister
was a
failure.
It was
worse
spoken
of by the press than any
novel I had written.
I.was
especially
hurt by a
criticism
on
154
It
In the Spectator." The reception was so bad that
Trol-
155
lope
felt
that he should stop
writing^
a thought he had
never
entertained
before. If the
most
scathing and
Insulting
re-
156 157
views,
which
appeared
in the
Atlantic
Monthly
and the Nation
(whose
notices of Trollope's
books
were
usually kinder than those
In English
periodicals,
can be taken as representative) it is
little
wonder
that Trollope was disheartened. The
chief
reason
for
its
remarkable
unpopularity was the
fact
that The
Prime
Minister
is
entirely
made
up of
elements
which
were
unpleasant
to
the admirers of the
polite
world of Barset, and vulgar and
commonplace
to the consciously
artistic
and
Intellectual.
To
the
first
group
the novel
offers
little
of
romance
in the. story
of
Emily
Wharton;
the
hero
is a
stick;
and the
villain
is a
dis-
agreeable foreign adventurer unpleasantly reminiscent of
Melmotte
154Trollope,
Auto.,
ftn. 1»p. 529.
155Trollope,
Auto..
ftn. t»p. 5.30.
156Atlantic
Monthly,-August,1876,pp.245-246.
157Nation,
July
20,1876,p.45.
- 38 -
in
The Way We
Live
Now,
Never
a popular
figure,
Plantagenet
Palliser
is here unusually
unattractive:
In his
over-sensitivity,
whL&£
Lady
Glencora's
charm
is
sacrificed
to the greater
glory
of
Trollope*s
ideal
gentleman
statesman.
From
the
more
criti-
cal
standpoint the
book
was equally
unhappy,
since the
main
subject
of the
careful
portraiture
is not in the
least
heroic,
nor unusually
Intelligent,
but simply the
embodiment
of all
that,
If
worthy,
is decidedly
dull.
Moreover,
Emily
Wharton*s
misdirected
constancy
seemed
painful
and
stupid
rather than tra- .
gic;
while
Lopez
himself, the one character who
might
have
had
appeal If he had
been
drawn
on the grand
scale,
was
rightly
re-
garded as a
mere
vulgar small-time swindler. The
first
group
of
readers found the
work
depressing; the second found It
dull.
Until
his death,
however,
Trollope's
reputation was
never again at so low an ebfo. In the next year, 1877, we
find
the
first
evidences of a gradual
change
in ti&
attitude
to
Trol-
lope,
which
becomes
increasingly
approving in the next
five
years.
He never regains the
position
he had held In the
sixties,
but in
the
last
years of his
life
he
seems
to
have
been
granted, by
some
sections of the
public
at any
rate,
that
sort
of
affection-
ate
regard
usually
reserved for
public
institutions.
A
clear
instance
of
this
change
from, the
contemptuous
feeling
prevalent
In
the
early
seventies Is found in an
article
which
appeared in
158
the Edinburgh
Review
of
October,1877.
The tone is
always
affectionate
and
tolerant,
and frequently
enthusiastic.
It is;
noteworthy
that
by far the
major
portion
of the essay is devoted
to
nostalgic
discussion
of the Bar set
stories,
though
the
writer
"Mr. Anthony*sTrollope*s Novels," Edinburgh
Review.
October,
1877,pp.455-488
.
- 39 -
speaks
tolerantly
of
what
he
describes
as the
necessarily
un-
equal
quality
of such a
prolific
author's
work
and
considers
that
Trollope
has maintained a high general average. " A
chance 'Miss Mackenzie' is far
more
than
compensated
by a
'Doctor
Thome'
or a 'Framley Parsonage' and while we are
shaking
our
heads
over a "Eustace
Diamonds'
he
shows
himself
capable
of
higher:,
work
than we had
hitherto
credited
him with,
by something-
that
is.
altogether
charming
like
'The
Last
Chron-
t 159
icles
of Barset,."
The
same
shift
in
opinion
is expressed by Robert
Louis
Stevenson In 1878, though he
shows
himself
a
rather
shame-
faced
convert.
Do you
know
who is my
favourite
author oust
now?
How are the mighty
fallen!
Anthony
Trollope.
I
batten
on him; he is so
nearly
wearying- you., and
yet
he never does; or
rather,
he never does
until
he gets near the end.,
when
he begins to
wean
you
from him, so
that
you're as pleased to be
done
with
him as you thought you would be
sorry.
I
wonder
if
It's
old age ? It is a
little,
I am sure. A
young,
person
would get sickened by the dead
level
of
mean-
ness and cowardliness; you
require
to be a
little
spoiled
and
cynical
before you can enjoy It. I have:
just
finished
the Way of the World
£>lc^0
j there is
only
one person in it - no, there are
three,
- who
are
nice....All
the heroes and heroines are
just
ghastly.
But
what
a triumph is Lady Car bury! That
is
real,
strong,
genuine
work:
the man who
could
do
that,
if he had. had courage, might
have
written
a
fine
book;
he has
preferred
to
write
many
readable
ones.160
The
reception
given the next few novels of
Trollope'Is
further
evidence of a
reputation
being
slowly
re-established
161
between
1877 - 1879. The American Senator
received
the
first
really
favourable:
review
that
the
Athenaeum
had given
Trollope
159ibid,
p.458.
160Colvin,
Sidney, The
Works
of Robert Louis Stevenson,
London,
Chatto
and
WIndus,1912,
vol.23,p.215. Stevenson was 28 at
the
time of the
letter
quoted.
161Trollope,
Anthony, The American Senator, 3
vols.,
London,
Chanman
and Hall.18771
- 40 -
in
years, with
much
praise being granted the quiet, Barset-
162
like
charm
of Dillsborough. Popularly, Trollope
felt
that
163
both
this
novel and the one that; followed, Is_ He
Popenjoy?
164
enjoyed
"fair
success".
Much
the
same
reception met An Eye
for
an Eye; while
John
Caldigate was a
definite
success.
167
Even
Cousin
Henry
did not
meet
with very harsh treatment.
Two other-
works
that
appeared
during these years
serve as reminders that Trollope,
though
once
again in
fairly
168
good
estate^was
not yet
firmly
placed. For
South
Africa
,
his
last
travel
book,
he could arrange a
price
of only
1»850,
£400
less
than he. had received for North
America
and
Australia
169
and New Zealand, and
when
the
book
appeared
It was, according
170
to
Mr. Sadleir n...the
least
successful of his
travel
books."
Nevertheless, running
into
four
editions
before his death, and
receiving;
a favourable notice in the
Athenaeum,
it had a happier:
171
history
than the
lit.tle
book
on
Thackeray,
which
was.
violently
2Athenaeum,
June
16,1877,p.766.
163Trollope,
Anthony,,ISQHe
Popenjoy?,
3
vols,
London,
Chapman
- and Hall,1878. Re
viewed:
Athenaeum.
May
4,1878,
p. 567,
I64Tronope,i
Auto.,
p.331^
ftn.
1.61JTrollope,
Anthony,
Ah Eye For an Eye, 2
vols,
London,Chapman
and
Hall,
1879,
Reviewed:
Athenaeum,,Jan.,11
,,1879,p.47;
Blackwood*s
March,1879,pp.338-339;
Nation,
April
24,1879,p.290.
166Trollope,
Anthony,John
Caldigate, 3
vols,
London,Chapman
and
Hall,
1879.
Reviewed:
Athenaeum.,
June
14,1879
,
p.755.:Nineteenth
Century,
August,1880:,
p.540.
*-67Trollope,
Anthony,
Cousin
Henry,
2
vols.,
London,
Chapman
and
• Hall,1879.
Reviewed:
Athenaeum,
October
18,1879,
p.495.
168Trollope,
Anthony,
South
Africa*
2
vols.,
London,
Chapman
and
•
Hall,
1878. -
169Stabbinses, op_. cit,
p.302.
17QSadle.ir,
op_. cit,
p.315.
*7iTrollope,
Anthony,
Thackeray.
1 vol.?London,
Macmillan,1879.
-
41 -
172
attacked
as
stupid
and
unappreciatlve
in
America,
while
more
kindly
British.
revIews^73found
the
critical
portion
of
the
book:
at
best "disappointing."
174
But
with
the
publication
in 1880 of a
sequel
to,
of all
books
to
choose,
The
Prime
Minister. Trollope
once.
again
came
Into
his own.
The'comments
in
reviews
make
it
-
clear
that
he was
brought
to
this
point
on a wave of
reaction
against
the
"esoteric doctrines"
of "the
modem
school
of
high
175
art",
Trollope
Is
praised for
knowing
"...that
the
first
thing
required
of a
novelist
Is
that
he
should seize
the
attention
of
176
his
readers
by
interesting-
and
amusing
them"
and a
writer
In
the
Nation
declared that
"No one
ever,
we
fancy, read
a
novel
of
his
without
wishing
that
he
might
soon
write
another,
and
it
Is
only
born
story-tellers
who
leave
us In
this
frame
of
177
mind:."
To readers,
weary
of
problem
novels,
who had
fond;
memories
of the
enjoyment
Trollope's Barset
novels
had
given
them.
In the
sixties,
when
they
had
been
repelled
by the
flood
of sensation
fiction,
The
Duke's
Children
was a
delightful
ex-
perience.
Though
it
is the
author's
thirty-ninth novel it
has
all
the
freshness
of
Framley
Parsonage.
combined
with
a
plot
172cl.
Atlantic
Monthly.
August
1879,pp.267-268;
Nation.August
21,1879,
pp.126-127.
173cl.
Athenaeum.
June
14^1879.pp.749-750;Westminster
Review.
July
1879,p.258.
174Trollope,
Anthony,
The
Duke's
Children,
3
vols.,
London,
Chap-
man and
Hall,1880.
.
175Athenaeum,
May
29,1880,p.695.
l76ibid.
177
Sedgwick,A.G.,"Trollope's 'The
Duke's
Children'", Nation.
August
19,1880,
p.159.
- 42 -
that
Trollope
had never
utilized
before.
In it Plantagenet
Palliser
is
made
human,
being presentedr.not as the
stiffly-
moving
aristocratic
statesman but as a
father
attempting to
understand
his
family,
who
have
grown
up as
strangers
to him.
His
daughter,
Mary
Palliser,
is one of the
most
charming of
the
Trollope
girls
who descend from Lucy Robarts and
Mary
Thome;
Gerald,
the younger son is a
nit-wit
not without
charm;
and young Lord
Silverbridge,
who bears a
certain
resemblance
to
Lord
Lufton
and Frank
Gresham,
is
rather
more
interesting
than
they. Although
early
in the novel he
seems
a
feather-
headed young man, he
grows
up
during
the course of the
action,
unlike
the
rather
static
heroes of the
earlier
books,
until
finally
he is
felt
to be
quite
worthy of
Trollope*s
charming
American
girl
abroad,
Isobel
Boneassen.
Mary's
lover,
who
delights
in the
name
of
Francis
Oliphant
Tregear, is a Phineas
Finn
agreeably'reinforced
in
character
by a
strong
admixture
of
Frank Greystock from The Eustace
Diamonds.
Some
of the
more
attractive
of the
characters
from
earlier
Palliser
novels
appear in The
Duke
*
s
Children,
but the
political
atmosphere has
gone
completely, sweeping
away
the
Ratl.ers,
and Bonteens, and
Barring
ton
Erles.
Certain
elements
too.
are
carried
over from
The Way We
Live
Now,but
the
sting
has
gone
from the
description,
giving
way to the type of
humour1
and
comedy
that
pervaded The
Eustace
Diamonds.
Even the
distressing
American
senator,Elias
Gotobed has here been atoned for by his countryman.
Ezekial
Bon-
eassen.
All in
all,
it is the one
Trollope
novel
that
has all
the
best
from his two worlds, the
ideal
land
of
Barsetshire
and
- 43: -
the
realistic
society
of
London,
and consequently,
like
The
Last
Chronicle of Barset,
managed
to please everyone.
With a
reputation
once
more
established
by
this
long
and
rich
novel
Trollope
worked
on with undiminished
178
vigour.
His next
book
was The
Life
of
Cicero,
in
which
he defended his hero from Froude in
particular
and the
scholars
who followed
Mommsen
in general. Unlike his other
essay
into
the
classics,
The
Life
of Cicero
received
general
179
approval.
Once
again In these reviews, and in those of the
180
following
Doctor Wortle's School, the
affectionate
tone is
very
noticeable,
and it may perhaps be
largely
traced
to
that
fact
that
in both of these
works
Trollope's
own pleasant
personality
comes
through
strongly.
'.L'IB
defending Cicero he
reveals
all his own vigorous and
affectionate
nature, while
Doctor Wortle's honesty, impatience, and
kindly
common-sense
inevitably
remind a reader of the man the author himself was
commonly
supposed to be.
181
Two
less
important
books
followed, Ayala's Angel
of
which
the Westminster
Review
said
that
though it ranked
below
his best
works,
"...which
constitute
his
claim
to be
182
considered
a
really
good
novelist...."
yet "People who
have
178Trollope,Anthony,
The
Life
of
Cicero,
2
vols„
London,
Chapman
and. Hall,1880>-
179cf.
Athenaeum,
August
6,1881,pp.170-171;
Atlantic
Monthly,
November
1882,
pp.669-670;
Blackwood's,
February
1881,,
pp.212-228;
Nation,
July
28,1881,pp.75-76.
180Trollope,
Anthony,
Doctor Wortle's School, 2
vols^
London,
Chapman
and
Hall,
1881#
Reviewed:
Athenaeum,January
15,1881,
p.93; Nation,
March
10,1881,
pp.172-173;Westminster
Review.
July
1881,
pp.283-284.
lSlirollope,
Anthony,
Ayala's Angel, 3
vols.,
London,
Chapman
' and Hall,1881.
182Westminster
Review.
October 1881,
p.566.
the
Trollope
taste
strongly
developed
will
read it and enjoy
183
it
thoroughly...."; and another
collection
of short
stories
with
the
rather
unwieldy
title
Why Frau
Frphmann
Raised Her
184
Prices;
And Other
Stories.
Neither of these nor the novels
185 186
that
followed,
Marian Fay and The Fixed
Period
is of any
great
interest
in a study of
Trollope's
reputation.
The
littl-
187
monograph,
Lord Palmerston which had
been
written
in 1867 bu
not published
until
1882, was not very
successful,
but it met
with
none
of the
deliberate
harshness
that
had
assailed
The
Commentaries
of Caesar and, to a
lesser
extent
^Thackeray.
On
December
6,1882
Trollope
died
in
London,
At the
time Kept in the
Darkld8was
just
completing
its.
run in
Good
189
Words
and Mr* Scarborough's Family was appearing in All the
Year
Round.
All
periodical
criticism,
of these novels and the
190
two which appeared posthumously, An Old
Man's
Love
and the
191
Incomplete The Landleaguers~? is
written
with a
sort
of
res-
pectful
bias
that
makes
it impossible to determine how the
most
interesting
of these, Mr. Scarborough's Family, was re-
ceived'.
It is a malevolent
story
of a man who detests the law
of
entail,
in which, according to the Stebbinses, never res-
183iMd.,
p,567.
-^Trollope,
Anthony,
Why Frau
Frohmann
Raised Her
Prices:
Ancl
Other
Stories,
1 vol.,'London,
Isbister,
1882.
185Trollope,
Anthony,
Marion Fay, 5
vols.,
London,
Chapman
and
Hall,
1882.
"Trollopej
Anthony,
The Fixed
Period,
.2 vo
1
s^dinbur&h and
London,
Blackwood1^, 1882. *
i87Trollope,
Anthony,
Lord Palmerston, 1 vol,
London,
Isbister
1.882.
188Trollope,
Anthony,
Kept in the
Dark,
z vols.,London,
Chat
to
and Winders, 1882.
189<rrollope,
Anthony,
Mr, Scarborough's Family, 3
vols.,
London,
Chat
to
and
Windus*,
1883*1
190Trollope.
Anthony,
An Old
Man's
Love, 2 vols.,Edinburgh and
, q,
London,Blackwood,
188£.-—
"~—- ——» •>
WV^Ki^°n7i
^Jiandl^uers,3
vols.London,Chatto and
- 45 -
trained
in
their
judgments,
"Titan-like, Trollope
questioned
the
moral
order and writhed
with
pain and
contempt
at his own
192
answer."
It
would
he interesting to
know
how the
admirers
of The
Duke's
Children
took
to
such
a
tale.
The peculiar affection that we
have
found
to he a
prevalent attitude
towards
Trollope since 1877'
reaches
its
height, naturally
enough,
in the notices of his
death.
This
is
only true,
however,
of
those
written by his friends,
which
record the
death
of
Anthony
Trollope, the man.
Those
which
deal
merely
with
the
death
of.a novelist are "...at.best tol-
193 194
erant at
worst
contempuous.Mi
While
the
Athenaeum
, Black-
wood
»s,I95Goot
Words,
196and
above
all Macmillajfs19^
were
app-
reciative
and
sympathetic,
The
Times,
after describing his
per-
sonality
as that"...of the hearty, frank, English
gentleman,
t
well-cultivated,
but
somewhat
ostentatiously
contemptuous
of the
petty;
refinements
of the
drawing-room....",firmly
and not. very
198
kindly
relegated Trollope*s
work
to respectable oblivion.
Similar
were
the
account
in the Spectator, and a
waspish
essay
199
by
Edmund
Yates
in the
World.
According to Sadleir"
Only
the
192Stebbinses, op. cit.,
p.327.
IQgSaaieir, op_.
cit..
p. 361.
194Athenaeum.Dec.
9,1882,pp.772-773.
^Blackwood's,
Feb.^883,pp.
316-320.
196011phant,"
Mrs.
Margaret,
"Anthony
Trollope,
"Good
Words
,XZXV,.
; 1882, pp.
142-144.
197Freeman,
E.A.,
"Anthony
Trollope",
MacMHans,
Jan
.,1885,pp236-240
I98London
Times,
Dec.7,1882,quoted
Sadleir, op.cit.,pp.
3.61-362.
199Sadleir,
op_.
cit.
.p. 562. . .
46 -
Saturday
Review
gave.
the
dead
man. true and
generous
credit
for
his
qualities"^00
A sad end to the long and
lucrative
career of the
novelist
who had
been
a bright
hope
twenty-five years before,
but not a very
surprising
one. Apparently Trollope had
owed
his
last
successes
entirely
to the people who had
originally
turned to him In the
sixties
as a
relief
from
sensation
fiction,
and had returned again In the seventies in reaction against the
"art"
novel. To
this
public he was a writer you could
depend
on for
likeable
gentlemanly
work,
that contained no unpleasant
shocks
or
violent
outcries against the conventions of
civil-
ized
mid-Victorian
society.
But unfortunately, popularity
with such people,
many
of
whom
had
been
reading Trollope since.
1855j
was not very
good
Insurance of continued favour-. For one
thing
they
were
dying out, and those who
remained
had
always
depended
on a new
Anthony
Trollope In
Mudie's
box: every few
months.
When
the supply
failed
their
interest
was
likely
to
flag.
To another
group
he had
remained
"the
chronicler
of
small
beer," the
photographer
of
dull,
commonplace
men and.
women
leading
futile
lives,
and" the endless turner-out of
novels
all,as
like
as
peas.
For
them,
when
Trollope novels
no longer
appeared,
the unpleasant hum of an old-fashioned
machine
had.stopped,
and the
silence
was refreshing.
200ibid
IX. In Examination of
Trollope*s
Present
Position.
The
relegation
of Trollope*s#work to the
oblivion
predicted:
by the:
Times
was delayed only momentarily by the.
201
publication
of his Autobiography and then speeded by the
book*s
effect.
The
reactions
of both the old-fashioned
lovers
of
Barset and the
rigorously
up-to-date
were
exactly
what
we
should
expect.
Once
again the
first
group was represented by
the
reviewers In the
more
conservative
periodicals,
the Athen-
QQ1 202 ^ 203 204
ontz
aeum,
Blackwood*
s , the Edinburgh
Review.
Good
Words20and
especially
the American
Atlantic
Monthly2?6Haper*s?Q7and the
*r *• 208
NatronT all of
whom
gave
the
book
sympathetic and ready
praise.
But the second group,the
consciously
artistic
and
intellectual,
was younger and far
more
vocal.
The
effect
of the Autobiogra-
phy on
them
has
been
neatly
described
by Michael
Sadleir;
Rarely
can the conventions and assumptions of
a vanished age
have
made
an appearance at
once
so
untimely
and so uncompromising as did those of mid-
Yictorlanlsm,
when.
Trollope*s
Autoblography
fell
with
a
splash
into
the elegant waters of aesthet-
203-Trollope,
Anthony,
An Autobiography, 2
vols.,
Edinburgh and
London,
Blackwood,
1883. .....
202,Athenaeum.
October
13,1883,
pp.457-45,9.
2Q5Blackwood*s,
November,
1883, pp.
577-596.
204Edinburgh
Review^
Jan.,lS841.pp
186-203.
205Good
Words, 1884,pp.248
- 252.
2Q6Atlantic
Monthly, Feb.,
188.4,pp.
667-671.
207Harper*s, Jan., 1884, p. 517.
208Nation,
Nov. 5,
1885,pp.
596-597.
- 48 -
Icism. The
book
is a
compendium
of all that was
most
offensive to the new
modishness.
It Is, the
self-portrait
of a man who
went
out of his way to
deny
his
literary
caste; of a man
physically
exub-
erant
and morally
unadventurous;
of a man (and
this
was
perhaps
worst of all) who was
blatantly
English.
And not content with being personally
distateful
to
the generation of his supplanters, Trollope by his
expressed
views
on authorship
flouted
their
every
aesthetic
prejudice. He put the
writing
of
books
on a
level
with the
practice
of amy other trade;
he
glorified
industry and perseverance; he
spoke
a
little
sceptically
of genius; he reckoned the re-
wards
of
literature
in
pounds
sterling
and the
calendar of its
creation
in
hours
by the clock.
It
would
have
been
impossible to counter
more
pro-
vocatively
the studied
attitudes
of Paterism, the
sour defiance of the Zolaesques, and the proclaimed
indifference
to pecuniary
reward
of all the
gifted
amoralities,
who In the
half
lights
of
Parisian
studies
or along the misty parapet of
Cheyne
Walk-
chanted the
twilit
loveliness
of
decadence.209
Barred
from,
personal attack by Trollope*s
irritating
modesty,
the aesthetes defended
their
cherished theories from
this
old-fashioned
flouting
by
assailing
the mid-Victorian*s
210
work.
A. E.
Newton,
in his essay "A Great
Victorian"
has
quoted
some
of the
remarks
made,
which
describe Trollopers
novels as
"commonplace",
"vulgar", "without
charm
or Imagination,"
and so on.
These
are general attacks,
which
merely
fling
derogA-
#t.ory adjectives at Trollopers
work
as a
whole.
A
more
effective
sample
of the eighties'contempt was a long essay
which
appeared
in
the
Westminster
Review
for
January,
1885,
sandwiched,
between.
"On the Study:':of the
Talmud"
and "The Materials, of
Early
Russian
History."
innocently
titled
"English Character and
Manners
as
211
Portrayed
by
Anthony
Trollope,"
the essay contains the
most
809Sadleir,
op_>
cit
„ pp.
562?-565.
21QNewton,
A.E. The Amenities of
Book
Collecting,
Boston,Atlantic
Monthly
Press, 5 Imp.,
1924,pp.
249-266.
211
Westminster
Review,,
January;1885,
pp.53
- 100.
- 49 -
effective;
attack,
upon
Trollope as a novelist that I
have
seen.
The -writer
knew
his Trollope inside-out, and. by cleverly
chosen
extracts,
slight
twists, and adroit
omissions,
managed
with
the
politest
and
most
dexterous
raillery
to
render
Trol-
lope's
much-praised
photographfs
of English society quite
ridiculous.
His
main
point Is that Trollope's version of
Eng-
lish
character and
manners
cannot
be
accepted
unreservedly as
true to
life,
which
of
course
hits
directly
at
what
was
assumed
to be Trollope's
major
claim to be considered a
good
novelist,
his realism. The writer
goes
on to
show
that
Trol-
lope's
manly
gentlemen
are in truth
heavy,
insensible, unin-
tellectual,
unreasonably
reserved and yet
completely
lacking
In
restraint,
inarticulate,
frequently discourteous and.
some-
times
grossly
rude,.
Incapable
of carrying on a
polite
dis,cus#-
Sion or of being
good-tempered
under
raillery,
and
eminently
incapable of
reasonable
thought.
The
much-admired
Trollope
girls
fare
little
better, for
their
shy
constancy
is
shown
to
be reticent
stubbornness.
Trollope, who had
seldom
been
sus-
pected
of being
unfit
for the family reading
beloved
of the mid-
Victorians,
Is
here
convicted on the
charge
of depicting family
relations
in an impossible
gloomy
light,
where
there Is no
con-
fidence
between
parents
and children, and selfishness is the
prime
motive
for all action. This,
charge
is closely
connected
with
another,
a sordid
materialistic
over-emphasis
on
money.
All
In
all,
Trollope fared badly at the
hands
of
this
clever
writer,
who
finally
paid his characters one tribute},
while
ibid.,
pp.56
ff
- 50 -
neither
their
morals
nor
their
intellect
are
fine,
they
are
"...strong in
their
desires; strong in
practical,
sense
and
the
energy
of
their
pursuits; strong
above
all In
undaunted
213
perseverance
and tenacity." In short, the
comfort
given Mr.
Crawley,
"It's
dogged
as
does
it,"
is
their
maxim.
If we
imagine
the reaction to
such
advice of the
young
George
Moore,
214
"eager
for
some
adequate
philosophy of
life"
we
shall
have
some
idea of how
completely
out of place Trollopers English
character and
manners
were
in the
world
of the eighties and
the nineties.
To say that no
just
appreciation of Trollope is to
be
found
between
his
death
and the turn of the century
would
be to
take
an excessively
gloomy
view,,
but one not far
from
accurate.
Provoked
no
doubt
by the
meagre
praise
granted
Trollope the novelist in the notices of his
death,
two mild
protests against the general lack, of
sympathy
appeared
a few
months
later
in
America.
The
first
of
these
was by ¥. H.
Pollock, who
defended.
Trollope
from,
the
charges
of
mere
mech-
anical
hack-work
which
the
Autobiography
had stimulated, and
from
the
derogatory
label
of
"photographer",
very sensibly
pointing out that no
photographer
needs
invention, a quality
215
with
which
Trollope was
liberally
endowed.
The
second
defense
came
from
an unlikely quarter,
since It was written by the man who
twenty
years
or so ago
216
had slashed The Belton Estatej
Henry
James.
2isibid,
p.99. '
214Modre,
George,
Confessions
of a
Young
Man,
London,William
Heineman
Ltd,,
1928,p.
11
(-|irst
published 1889) .
ai5Pollock, W.H.J
"Anthony
Trollope",
Harper's,
May?1883,pp.
9Q7-912„
216James,
Henrys"Anthony
Trollope",
Century
Magazine.
July, 1883,
pp.385-395.
- 51 -
His
advocacy
is less enthusiastic
than
Pollock*s, who had
known
Trollope well, but its point of
view
is
more
signifi-
cant of the
coming
age,
though
it is far
from
unappreclative.
He
hastens
to dismiss the notion that Trollope Is
unimagina-
tive,
but
goes
on to
complain
that
"Having
his imagination
at
his
command,
he is
touched
with
the
common,
for he
abused
217
it.
He
never
took
himself seriously as an
artist."
This,
however,
is the only
harsh
note
In an
essay
which
remains
one
of the
most
suggestive that has
appeared
on Trollope, as is
shown
by his tribute to the man
whom
he could not help but
reprove
for
having
written too
fast:
When
the
French
are disposed to pay a
com-
pliment
to the English
mind,
they
are so
good
as
to say that there is in it
something
remarkably
honnete.
If I
might
borrow
this
epithet
without
seeming
to be patronizing, I should apply it to
the
genius
of
Anthony
Trollope. He represents
in
an
eminent
degree
this
natural
decorum
of the
English
spirit,
andi represents it all the better
that there is not In him a grain of the
mawkish
or the prudish. He writes, he
feels,
he
judges
like
a man, talking
plainly
and frankly
about
many
things, and is by no
means
destitute of a
certain
saving
grace
of
coarseness.
But he has
kept
the purity of his imagination and held
fast
to old fashioned
reverences
and preferences.216
His
summing
up is
both
acute
and just:"There are two
kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative
literature;
the taste for
emotions
of surprise, and the taste for
emotions
of
familiarity.
It is the
latter
that Trollope
gratifies,
and
he
gratifies
it the
more
that the
medium
of his own
mind,
through
which.we
see
what
he
shows
us gives confidence to our
sympathy.
His natural Tightness and purity are so
real
that
219
the.good
things he projects
must
be
real."
2I7ibid..p.
585.
818ibid.,
p.586.
219Xhi.d*
*
P. 595.
- 52: -
One other point is
worth
particular notice/ Since
it
may well
have
influenced
later
Trolloplan
criticism.
In
spite
of his
sane
and
sympathetic
attitude to Trollope,
James
comes
out
flatly
in
condemnation
of the
later
novels;"For the
most
part*...he
should be
judged
by the productions of the
first
half of his career;
later,
the strong
wine
was rather
220
too copiously
watered."
James's
objection that Trollope had
never
taken
him-
self
seriously
as/an
artist
expresses
the
final
unforgiveahle
charge
that the eighties
brought
against the
once
popular
writer.
Here
of
course
it Is not the
truly
critical
minds,
like
James's,at
work.
This
mass
reviling
of a
good
author
was
done
by the
literary
snobs,
at
this
time
directed in
their
likes
and
dislikes
by
critics
whose
canons
were
those
of Art
for
Art's
sake.
The clearest distinguishing
mark
of the
lit-
erary
snob
Is his
inability
to laud
more
than
one writer, or
at
most
one school of writing, at a
time.
His passion of the
moment
is
work
that
complies
with
the dicta of the currently
fashionable
critics,
and
none
that has
been
written
under
diff-
erent
standards
Is
worth
a
thought.
It is not too
harsh
to say
that. Art for Art's
Sake
criticism
affords the
most
sympathetic
climate for the
literary
snob,
since its
emphasis
upon
the
individual
reaction as a standard and the basis of
Impression-
istic
criticism,
and
upon
form
and
matter
as separable
entities,
capable
of
independent
evaluation provides
almost
unlimited
scope
for pseudo-critical discussions, tremulously appreciative,
aa°ibid.,
p. 386.
- 53 -
and wonderfully
vague.
Led by
their
guides, the
literary
snobs
dismissed
Trollope's
work
"... with everything that Is of the
2E1
day and the craftsman, not of
eternity
and! art."
By 1899
forgetfulness
and snobbery
between
them
had
gone
a long way
towards
proving the
Times
*
obituary accurate
222:
in
its
prediction
of
oblivion
for all of Trollope's
work.
There is an odd.
semi-parallel
between
the beginning of his
career
and its
immediate
aftermath. Of his
first
novel, The
Macdermotts
of
Ballycloran?
the
Athenaeum
reviewer had
remarked,
that
"Twenty
years ago 'The
Macdermotts'
would
have
made
a.
reputation
for its author," and Implied that no one could be
bothered: with it in the
more
enlightened
days
of
1.847.
The
Trollope
novels of the
sixties
had
made
a reputation for
their
author, but to the readers of
twenty
years
later
they
were
be-
neath
notice..
The vast quantity of Trollope's
work
was
dead
and
gone;
and J;here was no
hope
of
resurrection.
221Saintsbury,
George,
"Three Mid-Century
Novelists",
In The
Collected
Essays and Papers of
George
Saintsbury,
London,
J.
M.
Dent
and.
Sons,
Ltd.,,
1923, vol II,
p-.«7-(.First
published
1890).
222N6thing gives
more
concrete evidence of
this
than the
pub-
lishers'
lists
from 1885 to 1889. The
English
Catalogue, of
Books
records
five
of Trollope's sixty-odd
works,
all in
cheap
monthly
numbers
with
advertising,
and a
cheap
edition
of
The
Warden,
From
1890
U1899.
the
sole
listings
are a one.
shilling
edition
of The
Commentaries
of Caesar and a
cheap
edition
of Marlon Fay. The
situation
in America, as revealed
by The
American
Book
CatalogueJLs only
slightly
different.
Several
of Trollope's
later
novels appeared In a
cheap
paper-
covered
series
published by
Munro
under
the general
title
of
the "Seaside
Library"'
in 1885, while a
cheap
edition,
of Mr,
Scarborough's Family
came
out the
following
year. Only
twa<
other
listings
occur
between
1885 and 1899, an expensive
set
of the Barsetshire Chronicles In
1892:,
and of the Parliamen-
tary
Novels in 1893. The venture
does
not
seem,
to
have
been
very
successful,
since for the next seven years Trollope's
name
disappears completely from the
American
lists.
-
54 -
In
view
of
this
state
of
affairs
it
is
startling
to
find
in 1945 a
journal
entitled
The
Trollopian,.
whose
editor
justifies
its existence
on the
grounds,
that
"First,
Trollope
is a key
figure
for a
rational Interpretation
of
Victorian
life;
and
second,
there
is a
large
group
of
people
who
admire
the man and his
works
and who
wish
to
223
study
both
intensively"'.
In the
following
number he
points
out
that
by
"...the
present
day when
Trollope
Is
at
least
among the
half
dozen
most
widely read English.
novelists
and" when the
amateur
of
only
moderate
means Is
frozen
out of the
auction sales,
a
chapter
in the
history
224
of taste
has
been
written."
To
examine
this
chapter
is
amusing
and
valuable,for
by distinguishing
the
various
elements
that
have
gone
Into
the
making
of
Anthony
Trollope*s
mid-twentieth
century
reputation
we may be
able
to
form
some
conclusions
as to
its
validity
as an
estimate
of his
novels*
worth.
Though
the
regeneration
of
Trollope*s novels
has
often
been
described
as
unexpected,
startling,
sensational,
or
unaccountable,
none
of
these
adjectives
has In
fact
any
great
justification.
It is
generally
accepted
that
good
literary
work
will
weather
a few
temporary
squalls,
and
Trollope*s
was the
object
of
real
critical
contempt
for a
relatively
very short period,
some
fifteen
to
twenty
years.
By
the
late
nineties, especially
among the
older
critics,
223B6oth,
Bradford Allen,"Preface;*
The
Trollopian, vol.1,
No. I.„ 1945, p.#2.
224Booith, Bradford Allen,
"Editorial
Note",
The
Trollopian,
vol.1,
No. 2, 1946,
p.
4.
- 55 -
the effects of yet
another
reaction
begin
to
appear
as the
pendulum
swings
away
again not so
much
from
Art for Art's
Sake
as
from.
Life
for Art's
Sake,
no?;
felt
to be a
decadent
ideal.
The
years
just
around
the turn of the century are
for
Trollope a period of
critics
who,taking
pity
on his
battered reputation,
felt
that
they
should play the
Good
Samaritan,
Unfortunately
these
writers,
though
feeling un-
easily
that injusticeshas
been
done
somehow
still
cannot
man-
age a
really
Just'
rer»assessment
of his
work's
value. Men
like
Frederick Harrison225Leslie
Stephenf26
George
Salntsbury227and:
228
Wilbur.
Cross
wrote
largely
from
the point of
view
that
"nobody
can claim, for Trollope any of the
first-rate
qualities
which
strain
the
powers
of subtle and philosophical
criticism;
but:
perhaps
it
would
be well if
readers
would
sometimes
make
a
229
little
effort
to blunt
their
critical
faculty". The result
of
such
an
effort
on
their
parts is; a
body
of apologies for
Trollope,
which
on the
whole
set the
key-note
for
many
later
critical
attitudes and establish certain ideas
about
his
novels
which
gradually
become
wide-spread
superstitions and prejudices.
Several
reasons
for
their
rather
grudging
and
uncer-
tain
praise
might
be
suggested.
First,
to
these
men the great
Victorian
novelists are
still
Thackeray
and
George
Eliot
(not,
however,
Dickens)
and
their
reputations cast a
mighty
shadow
over
their
contemporaries.
Second,
they
are not attracted
HarrisontFrederio,Studies in Early Victorian Literature, 2 ed..
London,
Edward
Arnold, lB9o7pp7iaS-"BT!3": "
226Stephen,
Sir
Leslie,
Studies,of a
Biographer,London,Duckworth
and Co.,
1902,vol.4,
pp.168-205.
2^7Saintsbury4
George.
A History of
Nineteenth
Century
Literature
C
1780.-1900£London,Macmillah
and"-Go.Ltd.
,192.9,pi.jajlfirst
pub.1896
2g8Cross.
W.L..-
The
Development
of the English
Novel,New
Tork,,The
Macmillan
Co.,
1899,pp.
215-224*.
229stephen,
Sir
Leslie,
o£. cit.. pp. 16.9 - 170.
-
56 -
by
the
Autobiography.
Trollope's personality,so thoroughly
foreign
to
their
conception
of the
artist,
distracts
them
from
his
work:
and
prejudices
them
against it.
He
recorded his
life
as that
of a
Philistine,
and
therefore
his
novels
must
be-
with-
out
beauty
and
without
commendable
form.
Their
feeling
Is
that
any
man who
considered himself
to be an
artisan
could
not in
fact
be an
artist,
and
that
such
a man's
system
of
necessity
produces
commonplace
books,
marked
by
n..*the
absence
of
all
the greatest
qualities
of
style;
absence
of any
passion, poetry,
e,
230
mystery,
or
subtlety".
Though
they
recognized Trollope's,
genius
for
characterization,
their
prejudice against
his
writing
methods
is so
strong that
they
speculate frequently
on how much
finer
his
work
would
have
been
"...if
his
whole
life
had
been
given
to his
work,
if
every
book,
every
chapter
of
every
book
were
the
fruit
of
ample
meditation
and
repeated
revision,
if
he
had
never
written with
any
thought
of
profit,
never
written
231
but
what
he
could
not
contain
hidden
within
him...."
Here
begins
the
first
superstition
about
Anthony
Trollope:
though
his
work
is
good,
it is not as
good
as it
might
have
been.
The
second,
that
the
Barset novels
are his
only
important
work,
grows
in
part
from
this,
for in
their
view
,his
inartistic
speed
exhausted
his
invention,
and so
only
his
early
work
could
be
really
worthwhile.
The
fact
remains,how-
ever, that
the
Barset novels
were
written
extremely
quickly,
Harrison,
op.
cit..
p. 188.
231ibid.,
p.187.
- 57 -
? "^2
even
for Trollope, and are farthest
from
the
ideal
of
artistic
method
outlined by Harrison. His
work
here
has.
been
evaluated on the basis of how It was
done,
rather
than
what
it actually was. By
these
critics
Trollope was
pigeon-
holed as a novelist
whose
early
work
had
managed
fairly
well,
to
overcome
the
crippling
handicap
of his
Inartistic
methods.
The patronizing
tones
of
these
rescuers grated
upon
some
whom/ft
a writ^er In the Dial described as "A
group
of
wor-
shippers who
have
been
faithful
in
their
devotions
at an all.
233
but deserted
literary
shrine."
/no*®
Suspicions of
such
luke-warm
converts and resenting
their
rather noisy procession to a shrine
which
they
had
been
frequenting all the
time,
some
of
their
number
burst into print
to
announce
that no apologies
were
needed
for
Anthony
Trollope.
They
range
in point of
view
from
the
pugnaciously/
British
G.S.
Street234to the mild and scholarly H.T;
Peck235and
the earnest
236
but
ever,
urbane
Stephen
Gwynn.
Their
essays
form
a
striking
contrast to the
group
we
have
just
examined,
for
they
defend
Trollope
from
the generalities of Harrison and
Stephen
by highly
detailed
and
specific
evidence
drawn
from
the
novels
themselves;
These
are men
anxious
to bring the discussion
back
to the
real
point,
which
is not Trollope*s personality and
methods,
but
what
they
produced.
Unfortunately
such
loyal
partisans
tend
to
be over-allusive.,
with
the result that
they
preach
effectively
232cf.
the. calendar of
events
in Trollope's
life
appended
to
Sadleirs*5'
Trollope, A
Commentary.
233E.M.,"The
Re
coming
of
Anthony
Trollope", The
Dial,
vol .34*
xx*»v,
1903,
p.141.
~ '
234street,
G.S.'"Anthony
Trollope",
Cornhill,
New Series, vol.
X, 1901, pp.
349-355.
235Peck,
Harry
"Thurston,
"Anthony
Trollope", The
Bookman,,
vol.XIII,
1901,
pp.114
- 125.
236Gwynn,
Stephen,
"The English Novelfin the
Nineteenth
Century",
Edinburgh
Review.
October,
1902, pp. 487 - 506.
- 58 -
only
to the already converted.
They
do not, in short, play
into
the
hands
of the
literary
snobs, who found the material
in
the
more
general essays far
more
useful.
On the
whole,
however,
these
writers
did contribute
one
generality
to the growing stream of ideas about
Trollope,
and
that
was the suggestion
that^chief
value was
sociological.
That they
were
inclined
to
exalt
this
claim for
Trollope
over
all
others may perhaps be explained by the consciousness of
recent
social
changes,
and the surge of Englishness stimulated
by the
Boer
War.
Here
we
find
the
first
evidence of
Trollope's
appeal during and!
after
wars:
"After
a year of
public
excite-
ment
when
one's
interest
and!
sympathy
have
gone
with the
strain-
ing
energies of the country, now, while
still
larger
thoughts
of
destiny bear on
one's
mind,
and great issues
still
are to-
ward
some
gentle refreshment is necessary, and! it is pleasant
to
contemplate the
social
English
as they
were
in a
quiet
time,
not our own, but not
unfamiliarly
remote.
Consequently I
have
betaken myself to
Anthony
Trollope,
an old and constant
friend,
237
and for
months
at a time almost my only reading in
fiction."
So speaks one
writer
who
makes
no pretence of
critical
detach-
ment
towards
his author, while another
comes
out
flatly
and
maintains
that
"...the greatest claim of
Trollope's
novels to
permanence^...is
their
picture
of
contemporary
English
life...
Surely
future
ages
will
turn to
Trollope
more
than to any other
author for a true and
vivid
picture
of
this,
life,
when
it
shall
238
have
wholly passed
away."
_yrm 1 ; —
^'street,
op_.
cit..,,
p.349$
238Bradford,Gamaliel.,
jr;>_
"Anthony
Trollope"
.Atlantic
Monthly
vol.U8|X,1902,. p. 431.
- 59 -
The
dangers
to
their
favourite's reputation of
such
well-meant
praise can be
seen
when
the
same
idea is
taken
up
by
someone
who lacks
their
stabilizing
familiarity
with
the
novels. A
list
of
articles
on Trollope covering the past
fifty
years
would
contain a large
number
of
essays
which
it is not
too
harsh
to
term
opportunist, and
these
have
sent
abroad
some
curious
melanges
and distortions of current
critical
sugges-
tions.
Perhaps
the
earliest
of
these
is W. F.
Lord's
"The
239
Novels
of
Anthony
Trollope,"
which
endeavours
to
maintain
all
the cautiousness and
emphasis
upon
artistry
of Harrison and his
companions
and yet stand by the
major
points of the
devoted
Trolloplans.
Properly, Lord was an
historical
scholar, but in
1901-1902
he
produced
a
whole
series of
articles
on English
novelists,
and it is
significant
of the
changing
fashion, that
he should
have
thought
it
politic
to
devote
an entire
essay
to
the
once-despised
Anthony.
Acknowledging
enthusiastically the
claim that Trollope
presented
a
vivid
picture of an
age*
Lord
proceeds
to
draw
the conclusion that in that
case
his
novels
are
doomed,
since
"...the
world
In
which
Trollope
lived
has
240
passed
away."
Because
of
this
"Every
page
brings its own
OAT
flavour
of unreality.. .;'"s*xIn order to
support
this
theory
Lord has to resort to the old cry that Trollope was not an
artist,
but only a
photographer.
After establishing
this,
how-
ever,
he- is sent veering off
towards
the enthusiast pole by a
cursory and very general discussion of the Barsetshire novels,
and by the end of the
essay
is
tempted
to
withdraw
the epithet
In
view'of
what
his labours
have
then
led him to praise as
239L,crd,
W.F., "The
Novels
of
"Anthony
Trollope",
Nineteenth
Century,
vol.49,1901,pp.
804-815.
240Lord, op_.
cit.,p.
806.
^libld.,
p.811.
- 60 -
2433
Trollope's
fine
characterization and
mastery
of
plot
and
narrative.
Finally,
however,
he is
brought
safely
home
again by the
restraining
influence "...of
remembering
the
Indignation with
which
Mr. Trollope himself repudiated the
243
idea
that he was any
more
of an
artist
than a
bootmaker."
As a
critical
essay the piece is worthless, but It serves as
a
fine
example
of the
effects
of
literary
gossip
upon
the
literary
snob.
From
1895
4b1905
then we
find
Trollope thoroughly
resurrected,
and very
much
a
matter
for discussion
among
critics
and", .those who
make
it a point to be
alive
to
what
critics
are saying. For another year or two the
movement
to
reassess the
worth
of Trollope
dragged
on, but by 1910 the
question was apparently considered
settled
and the spate of
articles
ceased.
When
the noise had died
down
he
emerged
In
very
much
the
position
which
Henry
James
had given him. He is
not the equal of the three great YictorlanSjThackeray,
Eliot
and Dickens, but by
virtue
of his Barset novels he is a
minor
classic.
His other
work
is of
interest
only to the student
of
the
history
of
manners,
who
will
find"
in it his close obser-
vation
and
"complete
appreciation of the usual" directed to-
wards
other aspects of mid-Victor Ian Ehglandl than the
rural.
To
establish
this
as Trollope's
rightful
position
involved
the
removal
of two factors
which
had
been
working
against
his reputation ever since his death. The
first
of these,
842The
quality
of
this
criticism
may be
gauged
by his require-
ments
here. cf. p. 814,"All the plots are
good:
it.
is
never
-exactly
obvious how they are going to< end."
243lord,
op.
cit.,.
p.816.:
-
61 -
the Autohiography, presented'
no
gre^t
problem.
Though
the
book
Itself
was
felt
to be a
rather
comic
record
of
literary
activity,
hardly
in the
best
of
taste,
the
damning
it
had
received
was
even
more
comic.
Because
of a
reaction
against-
those
who had
condemned
it,
the
Autobiography
was no
longer
used
as a
weapon
against
Trollope.
Instead,
It was
simply
sloughed over
or
apologized for
on one
ground
or
another.
The
second,
the
sheer bulk
of his
work,
proved equally easy
to
deal
with.
Forty-six
novels
are
apparently
too many to be
considered
in
estimating
a
novelists'
work
- the
mind
haggles
-
and
so by a
simple process
of
selection
six
are
chosen
as
eclipsing
all
the
others completely.
No
critic
who had a
hand
in
this
arbitrary
action
offered
any
real
evidence
of
the Barsat novels* imperishable
superiority
over all
of the
.others^
but the
choice
was made and
still
stands; today.
Whether
or
not
their
choice
can be
justified
will
be our
chief
concern
later,,
but
undoubtedly
It can be
explained.
In the
first
place,
the Barset novels,
as we
have
seen,
had
been
the
best-sellers
among
Trollope's
books,
and
it
Is
tempting
to
believe that
here
the
critics
see
acknowledging
the
authority
of
popular
taste.
More
convincing
is the
suggestion that
their
choice
was
inevitable,
in
view
of the
type
of
literature
which
they
were
decrying.
To men who
found
the
works
of
Moore
and
Gissing
disagreeably
unhealthy,
the
indisputably
wholesome
atmosphere
of
Barsetshire
would
be
boutnd
to
have
unusual appeal.
A
third
factor
may
perhaps
have
been
an
unconscious preference for deal-
ing
with,
a
fairly
homogeneous
group
of
novels,
which
can be
discussed
neatly
as a
Whole
or
easily
compared
one
with another
- 62
rather/
than, ranging
amongst
the
diversity
of the other
forty,
few of
which
lend themselves to such economical treatment.
During
this
period of
critical
readjustment Trollope's
novels
began
once
again to be
fairly
accessible.
At the be-
ginning
of the century his
books
came
out of copyright, and
John
Lane
published a
cheap,
and very
attractive
edition
of the
complete
novels, while In
America
a
similar
set of
forty
vol-
umes
appeared,,
edited by Harry Thurston
Peck.
Other
reprints
were
numerous,
especially
of the Barsetshire
series.
Prom
this
period
may be traced the beginning of Trollope's considerable
popularity
in the twentieth century. Publishers took a
chance
on the public's being Influenced by the
critics
and
added
Trollope
to
their
list
of nineteenth century authors
whom
It
was
becoming-
highly
profitable
to
reprint.
At
this
time his
work
shared the benefits of
certain
readers' return to older
novelists.
A century and a
half
of high
achievement
in the
field
of the novel had
made
this
form,
of art by far the greater
part
of
most
readers'
literary
diet,
but by 1900; the ordinary
educated man was beginning; to
have
his troubles with current
fiction.
He was In
fact
caught
between
two
phenomena:
the
dtsentegration
of the reading
public;
and the novel's increas-
ing
tendency to
move
away
from the
model
set by the great elgh<fc-
#eenth
century
novelists
and take over functions formerly per-
formed
by biography, the essay, and
above
all,
poetry. The
first
resulted
in lowered standards of
taste
which
ensured
fantastic
sales for the novels of Marie
Corelli
and
Hall
Caine,
and" for
Individual
books
like
Robert
HicHens'
Flames.
The
second was turning the novel
away
from the
tradition
of
story-
-
63 -
telling
and
vivid
characterization
towards
a
disregard
for
plot,
an
emphasis
on
fine
analysis
of
character,
motive
and
emotion,
experiment
in
language
and
form,
and,
very often,
special
pleading,
direct
or
implicit,
for some
particular
purpose
or
general philosophy.
The
eventual
result
of
both
these
movements
is the
complete
split
in the
reading public
which
today
guarantees
millions
of
eager
readers
for
Faith
Baldwin
and
Lloyd
Douglas,
and a
very
limited
and
specialized
group
for
Truman
Capote,
or
even
Ivy
Compton-Burnett.
The
breach
was
well
begun
in the
first
decade
of the
century,
and
already
the
reader
of some
taste
and
education,
who was yet
no
specialist
in
literature,
was
hard
put to it to
find
many
novels
among
current
fiction
with
which
he
could relax
and
enjoy himself.
Novels
were
either
vulgar
and
cheap,
or re-
quired
the
close attention
of
poetry.
In contrast,
the
Mid-VictorIan period
had
presented
»o
such
difficulties
to
these readers.
As Q. D.
Leavis
has
244
pointed
out,
Thackeray,
George
Eliot
and
Trollope:
were
the
favourite
novelists
of the
cultured,
among
their
contemporar-
ies,
and
Dickens,
Reade,
and
Wilkie
Collins
of the
less
edu-
cated.
Between
these
groups
there
was no
great
barrier.
The
admirer
of
Esmond
could respectably
and
enjoyably
kill
an
idle
evening over
The
Moonstone;
and the
most
sentimental
devotee
of
Little
Nell
would-
not
find
any
insuperable
difficulties
in the
language
or the
ideas
of Adam
Bede.
Accordingly, Mid-Victorian
Leavis,
Q. D.,.
Fiction
and the
Reading
Public,
London,
Chat
to
and
WindHSjf,
1932,
pp.33
- 34.
-
64 -
fiction
is a
paradise
for the
middle
brow
and to the
novelists
of
this
period
he
began
to
turn
at the
beginning
of the new
245
century.
Once
established
as a
minor
classic
by
virtue
of the
Barset
novels Trollope continued
to
hold
much the same
position
for
some
years.
The
reception
in 1915 of the
first
full
length
study,
T. H. S.
Escott's,
Anthony
Trollope:
His
Works,
Associates
246
and
Literary
Originals,
was
very
much
what
we
should expect.
It
was
welcomed
as
"...an
admirable record
of the
life
of the
author
247
of
the
Barsetshire novels...."
and
stimulated
much
remark
on the
recent
revival
of
Trollope.
The
book
was
criticized,
however,
for
its frequent analyses
of
plots,
which
had led
Escott
to
describe
Trollope
as in some
degree
the
progenitor
of the twen#-
tieth-century
problem
novel.
The
Nation's reviewer dismissed
the
idea
with ease,
on the
grounds
that V..it
is for
manners,
not for
psychology, that
we
turn
to
Trollope."248
The
affection
for
Bar-
setshire,
the
impatience with
detailed
study
of
Trollope's
work,
the great
interest
in his
life
and
personality,
and the
conscious-
ness
of his
value
to the
social
historian,-all
these greeted
Escott's
book,
and
all
are
characteristic
of the
attitude
towards
Trollope
current from
1900
-fo
1914.
With
1915 came the
centenary
of
Trollope's
birth
and.
one
or two
articles
commemorating
the
date,
a.
highly sympathetic
245-por
on
account
of the
interest
In
even
very
minor
Victorians
for
reprints,
cf.
Fuller,Edward,
"Real Forces
in
Literature",
Atlanticlbnthly,
vol.
^2,1905,
and
the
general
demand
"Real Forces.in
Literal
pp.
270 - 274. '
2461scott,.
T.H.S.,
Anthony
Trollope:
His
Works.
Associates
and
Literary
Originals,
JLOKPO.),
-XO^W
Lt*ne,
!«•••».
247MelvIlle.Lewis, "Escqtt.'.s
Anthony
Trollope",
Bookman,Oct,
1913,p.
43
•
248Nation,
September 20,1913, p.920.
- 65 -
one in the Nat
ion.,
and
another
in the
Bookman
which
looked
with
distrust
upon
the
last
fifteen
year's praise but
admit-
ted
finally
"...,he
can be
counted
on to divert
us."250
This
idea also
appeared
in
Punch,
couched
in
some
enthusiastic but
remarkably
flat
verses by C. L.
Graves,
who
sang
his gratitude
to Barsetshire in
what
might
almost
be a
burlesque
of current
251
criticism:
Good
Chrohiclear of Barset,
weaver
of genial yarns,
Homely
and unaffected as the verse of
Dorset
Barnes,
When
the outlook is depressing,
when
the journals
bleat
and scare,
I turn to
your
kindly
pages
and
find
oblivion there.
You lead us
back
from
the turmoil of
these
unhappy
days
To the land
where
our fathers
went
their
untroubled
ways;
etc.,
etc.
Had there
been
many
such
effusions Trollope and Barset
alike
might
well
have
been
killed
off
then
and there,but on the
whole
the war period
left
the novelist in
peace.
This Is not
surprising.
Anyone
browsing
through
the
newspapers,
magazines
and
letters
of the
time
is
immediately
struck: by the hysteria
and
emotional
flag-waving and tear-jerking he finds
everywhere.
It
is the
hey-day
of the stock appeal.
Even
if we dismiss
Trollope's
work
as
commonplace
it has an
honest
restraint
com-
pletely
foreign in
spirit
to
such
a sentimentally
overcharged
atmosphere
as
this.
The
same
honesty
and
absence
of cant
caused
his star
^"Trollope1
s
Centenary",
Nation,
April
29,1915,pp.460
- 46.1.
250seccombe,
Thomas,
"Anthony
Trollope,"
Bookman,
April,1915.
251It
isn't,
however.
The
latter
part is an outburst against
"high
brows"
typical
of
Punch
of the period.
-
66 -
to
shine
forth
again
in the
post-war
period,
lighted
by en-
thusiasm,
for the
Autobiography,
which
appeared
in 1922 for
the
first
time
since
the
original
publication.
The
influence
of
this
book upon
Trollope's
reputation
has
been
remarkable.
Having
effectively
damned him for one
generation,.by its
very
intransigence
and
assertive
bluntness [itj
remade more
than
it
ever
unmade{and]
established
more
effectively
than
it
ever
disestablished,
the fame of the man who
wrote
it.,and
of
the
long
list
of
wise, tender,
and
unpretentious novels
252
which
he
created."
The
twenties
saw
Trollope
rockettlng
higher
than
he had
ever soared before,
even
in the 1860's,
and. behind
this
rise
were
enthusiastic
Trollopians,
the
avant-
garde
of a
classical
aesthetlcism,
a
fine
scholarly
critic,
and
a
sympathetic
popularizer.
The
first
of
these
is
well
represented
by the
American
bibliophile,
A. E. Newton, whose
opinion
of
Trollope
is
voiced
255
clearly
In The
'Amenities
of Book
Collecting.
He
ends
his
essay
in
this
fashion:
Those
of us who
love
Trollope
love
him for
the very
qualities
which
cause
fatigue.
In
others.
Our
lives,
it may be,, are
faily
strenuous;
it is
hardly
necessary
for us to have our
feelings
wrung
of
an
evening.
When
the day Is done and I
settle
down
In my arm
chair
by the
crackling
fire,
X am
no
longer
inclined
to
problems,
real
or
imaginary.
X
suppose
the
average
man
does
his
reading with
what
comfort
he may
after
dinner;
it is the
time
for
peace
- and
Trollope.254
252<prollope,
An
Auto
bi
ogr
aphy,
ed.
Sadleir,
Oxford, Oxford
•
University
Press,
1922,
introd.
pp.v - vi.
253Newton, A.E. The
Amenities
of Book
Collecting,
Boston,
•
Atlantic
MbntnTy*
J^res.s,
b imp".,
ly24,pp.249
- 2:65.
254
Newton, op_.
cit.p
257.
- 67 -
At
first
sight,
this
seems
to follow along in the
tradition
of
Street and
Gwynn
hut the
Integrity
that
marked
their
en-
thusiasm has
gone,
and the
spirit
of C.L*
Graves'
unhappy
verses has taken its place.
However
sincere and
well-meant,
this
type of praise has
attracted
a bedside reading- school
of
Trollopians
whose
goal,
whether
they
call
it
"peace"
or
"oblivion"
is not
rational
and appreciative
enjoyment,,
but
escape; and
whose
highroad to it is unimaginative reading.
Trollope*s
novels leave
feelings
unwrung
and
pose
no prob-
lems
only for those who
fail
to recognize the paths
implicit
in
many
off his
situations.
On the other
hand,
his
second
group
off supporters
seized
upon
this
very reticence of
emotion
and elevated
Trol-
lope to
Jane
Austen's
astral
plane, there to
join
her In serv-
ing
as a pattern of perfection and a reproof to romantic excess.
Here
the
wheel
has
come
full
circle,
and the abomination of the
1885
aesthetfis
has
become
the
darling
of
their
1928 counter-
parts.
The
fantastic
lengths to
which
this
particular
school
could
go are
demonstrated
by Ford
Madox
Ford in his
book
on
the English novel:
Trollope
and Miss Austen. -
like
Shakespeare
and
Richardson - stand so absolutely alone that no-
thing
very
profitable
Can be
said
about
them
by
a writing analyzing
British
fiction
in search of
traces
of
main
currents of
tradition.
They
were
both so aloof, so engrossed, so contemplative -
and so masterly - that
beyond
saying that
some,
people prefer "The
Warden"
to
"Framley
Parsonage"
and
"Sense
and
Sensibility"
to "Pride and Prejud-
ice"
and that others think the reverse there is
little
to be
said.
These
at
least
are authentic
writers
- they neither
flare
out Into
passages
that
are all super-genius.. .nor do they
descend.
to
the
Intolerable banalities
of the
endings
of
"Copperfield"
or
"Vanity
Fair",..4all
you can
say
is
that
they
were
just
temperaments,
and
quiet
ones
at
that. Inimitable
-
that
is
what
they
are ,250.
Obviously
this
is a
radical
move^
shooting Trollope
from
a
lowly
but
respectable position
to
heights
on
which
none
of
his
admirers
had
ever
dreamed
of his
belonging
before.
Twenty-
five
years
previously Leslie
Stephen
had
thought
he was
doing;
his
best
for
Trollope
when he
suggested
that
"...perhaps
it
would
be
well if
readers
would
sometimes
make a
little
effort
to
blunt
their
critical
faculty."
By 1928 his
daughter,
Virginia
Woolf,
could write
of a
dominion
of
perfection exercised
by
"...those
two perfect novels, Pride
and
Prejudice
and The
Small
House
At
Allington
....?257and
she had
reached
this point
not by any
blunt-
ing
of her
critical
faculty,,
but by an
extreme
sharpening
of one
side
of It*
Pride
and
Prejudice
and The
Small.
House
at
Allington.
can
be
described
as
perfect
novels
only if
the
ideal
of
fiction
is
the
stimulation
of
what
Henry
James
called
"the
emotions
of
'258
familiarity."
Here
Trollope
has
been
sucked
Into
a
tide
of
that
criticism
which
considers
these
emotions
of
familiarity
to
consist
In the
pleasure
of
recognition
not of the
commonplace,,
the ordinary,
the
everyday,,
but the
basic, universal features
of
human
life
and
character.
Since
these
are
fundamental
and
true
to
nature they
ean
have
no
power
to
provoke
the
"emotions
of
surprise".
255'Ford,
Ford
Madox, The
English
Novel.
London,
J.B.Lippencott
Company,
1929,
pp.
119 - 120.
256Quoted
above,
p. SS,
257
Woolf,
Virginia,
Common
Header,
2nd\!L
Series,,
London,Hogarth
Press,
1935.,,
p. 234.
(elssay
Aiftst
printed
19.28.)
7
258cf.
p. -
- 69 -
With
their
emphasis
upon
the
human
values in
literature
these English twentieth-century; neo--cla.ssI.cals
have
certain
elements
in
common
with another
group
that ex-
tolled
Trollope, the Babbitt New
Humanists
in
America.
An
outstanding
member
of the
movement,
Paul
Elmer
More,
devoted
a long chapter in The
Demon
of the. Absolute to "My
Debt
to
259
Trollope,"
making
a claim for him that had
never
been
serious-
ly
offered before:
The
element
of
religion
which,..pervades
all
Trollope*"
s
fiction,,
is the
ethical.
...No
one of our greater
novelists,
unless it be
George
Eliot,
saw
more
clearly
than he the In-
exorable
nexus
of
cause
and
effect
In the
moral
order, or followed
more
relentlessly
the
wide-
spreading
consequences
of the
little
defalca-
tions
of
will,
the
foolish
misunderstandings of
sympathy,
the
slight
deflections
from
honesty,
the deceptive temptations of success, the
fail-
ures to
make
the
right
decision at
critical
moments,
the ruinous conrosions of passion and
egotism.260
All
this
is a far cry
from
the cautious praise of
Saintsbury and Harrison, and the
dangers
to any author of thus
becoming
a
particular
movement's
darling
are obvious.
From,
the
hands,
of the
truly
critical
he
falls
among
a new set of
literary
snobs,
and
becomes
a fashion, faced" with the
inevitable
fate
awaiting all fashions. That Trollope was not
blotted
out
once
more
by a new
feeling
that the
movement
against excess was
itself
excessive,
a
little
unbalanced,
and bent
upon
deifying
the
common-
place
into
the
universal,
can be
directly
attributed
to the re-
261
straining
influence of Michael
Sadlelr*
s Trollope,A^
Commentary,
259More,
Paul
Elmer,
The
Demon
of the Absolute. Princeton,Prince ton
'
University
Press,
1*328,
pp.8T~-~TT8
260More,
op_. cit., p.98.
261SadleIr,
Michael, Trollope, A
Commentary,
London,
Constable
and Co. Ltd., 1927.
- 70 -
which
came
out in 1927.
Primarily
a biography, the
book
devotes nine tenths of its space to an examination through
Trollope^
of the
Mid-Tictorian
period,
since
he is represen-
ted
as having expressed both "a
period
and an
individual
phy-
chology."262 This is the
interpretation
of
Trollope
which
has
persisted,
as we
have
seen from the
aims
of The
Trollopian,
Part
of the success of
Sadleir's
view may be
traced
to the
fact
that, unlike
Virginia
Woolf's
interpretation,
it
jars
none
of
the
traditional
ideas
that
had developed
since
Trollope's
death.
The
emphasis
throughout
falls
first
upon
the man himself, as
being
far
more
interesting
ultimately
than his
work,
secondly
upon
his novels' "expression of
period
psychology," and
lastly
upon
the
books
themselves. The
last
thirty-five
pages
of a
bulky
book
are devoted to
trying
"...to
appraise him
fairly
and
dispassionately,
to take account,
neither
of
period
whim
nor of
his
own expressed
ideals,
but only of his
right
to hold a place
in
the imperishable pageant of, the
English
novel"264
To
this
attempt
Sadleir
was
prompted
by both the C.L.
Graves and the
Virginia
fifoolf
types of
Trollope
admirers,
feeling
that
"Trollope
deserves a graver admiration than as a
mere
bed-
book
author, and at the
same
time a
judgment
more
stringent
than^ .
would
be passed by a new found enthusiasm for his
Victorianism".
He is, in
short,
to be
neither
petted nor
deified,
but
treated
seriously
and
soberly
as a
novelist.
Sadleir's
attempt to do
- 71 -
this
results in a sensitive and appreciative
survey
of
Trol-
lope^
output,
written
with
all his usual wit and
charm.
From
266
it
Trollope
emerges
as "the
supreme
novelist of
acquiescence?
whose
"almost
pugnacious
acceptance
of
reality"
distinguishes
267
him
from
all other novelists of standing*. His art has two pre-
dominant
qualities:
"the
power
off characterization and the
power
268
of dramatization of the usual."
Up to
this
point Sadleir has offered nothing that had
not already
been
put
forward
by
Henry
James
in 1885, and
more
or less established as the
proper
estimate
of Trollope by 1910.
He
does,
however,
go farther
than
this.
Trollope is
presented
as an. adult writer for adult readers,
"more
interested In the
deceptive
calm
of society's, surface
than
in the details of the
269
hidden
whirlpools
beneath"
and. "...In all things sophisticated
270
and in
social
things
more
than
a
little
cynical." The re-
mainder
of the
chapter
Is
devoted
to a description of his
lit-
erary
development,
and,
though
the novels; are
recommended
whole-
sale,
Sadleir's
purpose
here
is to reaffirm the already estab-
lished
supremacy
of Barsetshire. This he
achieves
by a detailed
analysis off
Doctor
Thorne,
which
he describes as
typical
off the
good
qualities of Trollope as a novelist. One point in
this
study
illustrates
Sadleir's point of
view
at
once:
he feels that
the portrait of Sir
Roger
Scatcherd,
a
self-made
man who
finally
drinks himself to
death,
is: essentially un Trollop-ian,- the
shad-
lil
ibid-.
P- 366. 267
ibid.,
p. 367-
268 i^d-, P- 369. 269 ^ f
p>370.
ibid-,
p. 371.
- 72 -
ing
is too strong. The pure
Trollope
is found in the drawing
of
Mary
Thome:
"In her the
light
and beauty of the
whole
book
are
centred." On a wider
scale
the ending of the chapter pre-
sents
the
same
idea:
"At times one
wonders
whether
this
fierce
tremendous
book
fThe Way We
Live
Now)is
not the
greatest
novel
Trollope
ever wrote. But
when
the thought of
Mary
Thome
re-
turns,
and be cause beauty is
more
permanent
than anger and sweets
ness
more
abiding
than even righteous
cruelty,
the
satire
falls
Into
second
place,
leaving
at the proud
apex
of
Trollope
fiction
271
the
tale
of Doctor Thorne
perpetually
enthroned."
Unfortunately,
this
brilliant
biography was
closely
followed
by the
English
Men of
Letters
Series'
volume
on
Trol-
070
lope,
written
by
Hugh
Walpole,
Ostensibly
the author's aim
was the complete
popularization
of
Trollope,
but unhappily
this
purpose is achieved
entirely
on Walpole*s own terms. The
early
part
of his
book
is based
upon
the Autobiography, or
rather
upon
Walpole's sentimental
interpretation
of
what
he describes as "one
of
the
most
honest,
sincere
and noble-minded
books
in the
English
273
language." He produces a
Trollope
who bears a
startling
res-
emblance
to one of Walpole*s own
characters,
a popular
novelist
274
named
Campbell who appears; in The
Young
Enchanted .
Seen
through the eyes of one Peter, who represents the
writer's
own
point
of view, "Campbell was a bit of a
fool,
too fat, too pros-
perous, too anxious to be papular, but he was a
happy
man, and
ayj-ibld.
t pp, 599 - 400.,
272
Walpole,
Hugh,
Anthony
Trollope,
London,
Macmillan and Co.,Ltd.,
1928.
273Walpole, op.
cit.,
-8.1.
'^Walpole,
Hugh,
The
Young
Enchanted,
London,
Macmillan and Co.
Ltd.,
1921.
- 73 -
a man who was
living
his
life
at its very
fullest.
He was not
a great
artist,
of course - great
artists
are never
happy
- but
he had' .a
narrative
gift
that it
amused
him to play with every
morning
of his
life
from ten to twelve, and he
made
money
from
that
gift
and could buy
books
and
pictures
and
occasionally
do
a
friend
a
good
turn. Monteith and
Grace
Talbot and the others
were
more
serious
artists
and
were
more
seriously
considered,
but
their
gifts
came
to
mighty
little
in the end -
thin,
thin
little
streams.**275
£.
Fairly
well
forestalled,
however,
in any extended
attempt at biography by
Sadlelr*s
book^Walpole
of necessity
devoted
most
of his
attention
to the novels. He glances at
the
whole
catalogue,
even
the almost forgotten La
vendee:
passes
some
acute
remarks
on the
later
novels that yet are
vitiated
by
an underlying current of
"See*,
old Trollope can beat the high-
brows
at
their
own
game";
and
finally
plumps
firmly
for Barset-
shire,
on the
grounds
that in
this
series
"Trollope has created
276
a world." One cannot help but
feel
that his
affection
for
this
world
stems
from the
fact
that to his
mind
it has the
virtue
of
his own sea-side
town
of Cladgate. "No New Art In Cladgate!
No
Indeed.
Mostly very
charming
warm-hearted
people with no
nonsense
about
them."277
In
this,
study Trollope is
firmly
dragged
down
to the
middle-brow
level,
and the
seal
of approval is set
upon
the bedside-reading school of
Trollopians
by a
novelist
of
the respectable
"literary"
type who has great popular
influence.
The
book
represents the
final
debasement
of the
affection
of
Peck
and
Gwynh,
but at the. time reviewers united In saying that It
a75ibid.,.
Book
II, Chapter VII.
276Walpole,
Anthony
Trollope,
p. 67.
277walpole,
The
Young
Enchanted.
Book
III, Chapter I.
- 74 -
would
help not a
little
in the
rehabilitation
of Trollope's
reputation.
Whether
or not it
helped
to rehabilitate Trollope's
reputation,,
Anthony
Trollope certainly
helped
to fix it for
a
number
of years, and also to
sell
the novels, especially the
Barsets.
From
this
time
on
slightly
querulous-
notes
are struck
In
articles,
complaining
that
this
novel or that,
mentioned
by
Walpole,
is not available, and publishers saw to it that
these
cries
did not go long
unanswered.
The Barset
novels
appeared
in
many
editions, the
Palliser"
novels
fairly
frequently,
while
the
Oxford
University
Press
devoted
an increasingly large section
of
their
World's
Classics Series to Trollope's
works.
The re-
sults
of all
this
publication should
have
been
happy
for
Trol-
lope,
since-it
meant
that
critics
who
chose
to discuss certain
novels
could be
reasonably
sure
that;
their
readers
would
have
access
to
them.
However,
though
Trollope was certainly read
in
the
thirties,
critically
speaking
he
remained
almost
en-
tirely
static.
From
1928 to 1938 only two
Important
studies
278
appeared,
an
essay
by Lord
David
Cecil,
and the section on
Trollope in Ernest
Baker's
comprehensive
History of the English
279
Novel.
Trollope at the
time
was In the position of an
author
who stood or
fell
with
his Victorianism,
Michael
Sadleir had
studied him primarily as an expression of his period, and had
done
so
with
a
sober
detachment
that
passed
no
judgment
on the
period
itself.
Walpole
on the other
hand
had praised him
because
278Cecil,
Lord
David,
Early Victorian Novelists, New
York,
Bebbs-Merrill
Company,
1935.,
pp, 253 - 287. -
279Bakerj
Ernest
A.,The
History of the English
NoveljLondonH.
F .
and G.
W&therby,
Ltd., 1937, vol. 8,
pp.112
- 160.
- 75 -
of the conservative
elements
which
he
admired'
in the Mid-
Victorian
social
scene,
quite
illogically
contrasting
them
with
the
intellectual
Ideals of the New Art
highbrows
that
he feared.
Cecil,
in his turn
sought
to
compare
the Victor-
Ian novelists one to
another
as
artists.
The result in
Trol-
lope's
ease
is an urbane^slightly bloodless
essay
which
passes
much
the
same
judgment
as had
Henry
James
r
"Trollope
Imagined
truly,,
but he
imagined
faintly."
«ms
most
Interesting point
is
that Trollope,
commonly
considered the Arch-Victorian^Is
the only one of
these
novelists to
whom
the Victorian,
conven-
tions
are
mere
machinery,
so that "the
modern
reader
never
has
281
to adjust his
mind
to a Victorian
angle
In order to
enjoy
him."
There,
his
heresy
ends,
however,
and his
final
observation
upon
the
novels
Is that since Trollope's greatest value
lies
In his
power
to
make
us
laugh,,
the Barset series are his highest achleve-
282:
ment,for
they
make
us
laugh
the
most.
Similarly,
only one new suggestion
appears
in the
Baker
study,
and
like
Cecil's idea it has
never
been
taken
up and de-
veloped.
He is the
first
to claim a poetic quality for
Trol-
lope, basing his claim
upon
"the
generous
feelings and
self-
abnegation
that he
regards
as perfectly natural, as the reverse
of surprising and extraordinary in
such
as Mr.
Harding,
Grace
285
Crawley
and her father, etc."
On the
whole
these
are the two lone
critics,
seriously
considering Trollope as a writer. As the fashion for Victorian-
ism
waned
Trollope was
more
commonly
dismissed as a
smug;
old-
28QCeeil,
0£. cit..
p.265.
28Iihld.t
p.261.
282ibid.^
p.286.
285Baker,
op.cit.,
p.144.
- 76 -
fashioned cynic,
totally
lacking in
social
conscience. By
the end of the
thirties
a rather
pompous
leading
article
In
the
Times
Literary
Supplement
described his. position
among
those
who
move
with
the fashions In no kindly
terms.
...Trollope's
little
burst of popularity in
the
twenties
has already
warred.
It leaves
behind
It
a
charming
book
by Mr.
Hugh
Walpole
and a
brilliant
one by Mr.
Michael
Sadlelr»
but no
cult
survives.
Apart
from,
the
unpalatableness
of
Trol-
lope's
form
to
modern
taste, the
reason
doubtless
is
that on
examination
he turns; out to be not a
genuine
de
bunker
at
all.
There
is no
malice
In
him. He
takes
the
political
world
as he
took
the.
religious
world
and
every
other kind of
world
he
described... to be an
everyday,
material,
seamy-
sided
affair,
and he was not a bit
horrified
by
his
discovery.284
This is a curious description of the gradual Trollope
rehabilitation
we
have
traced
from
1895.
Though
there ia
ample
evidence
of different
groups
turning to Trollope for different
things there has
been
no Indication of his enjoying popularity
as a
de^bunker
of Victorian!sm of the Lytton
Strachey
school.
Equally Inaccurate was the
article's
acceptance
of a fresh and
permanent
eclipse for Trollope, since the
"little
burst of
popularity"'
from
which
"no
cult
survives"
proved
to be a
mere
earnest of the
really
startling-
rage
for Trollope during- the
Second
World
War.
This
surge
of popularity
manifested
itself
in a greatly
increased
demand
for his
novels
at a
time
when
publishers had
no
paper
for the
purpose,
with
the result that poorly
bound
285
second-hand
copies of older editions sky-rocketted in price.
The effects of
this
demand
are
still
with
us In 1950,
when
not
only—the
popular
World^s
Classics editions are
hard
to
come
by,
284Times
Literary
Supplement.
March
20,1957,
p. 19 3.
285Wildman,
John
H.,
"Anthony
Trollope
Today",
College English,
vol.
VII, 1946,
p.398.
- 77 -
but the
expensive
Oxford
Illustrated
Trollope
eludes
the
eager
purchaser. During
the
war^too
several of the Barset
novels
were
broadcast
as
serials
by the
B.B'.C.
with
considerable success,
while
Trollope
even
invaded
the
London
stage
for a respectable
little
run
with
a version of the Last Chronicle of Barset.
With
the exception of the
activities
of R.W.
Chapman,
who has recently turned his attention to the task of establish-
ing
a
definitive
text of Trollope, Trollopian
criticism
during
the
last
ten
years
has
been
largely
devoted
to speculation
about
the
reasons
for
this
craze.
From
all the
mass
of
ephemeral
con-
jecture
on
this
point we. can
gather
that two Trollopes
caught
war-time:
England's
fancy, the one that offered an
escape
into a
world
for
which
people
felt
nostalgia, and the one who offered
comfort
to
those
who
were
too
honest
to turn
their
backs
on the
present. The
first
of
these
is the
more
common,
and It is the
Trollope-
popularized by
Hugh
Walpole
aa the creator of Barset-
shire.
The
second
is a distorted over-simplification of
Vir-
ginia
Woolf's
interpretation, and Its
main
source
of Interest is
not the novels, but the
Autobiography.
For
fifty
years
Barsetshire has
been
keeping
Trollope
in
the
ranks
of
authors
whose
work
is not
dead,
and it has
done
so
because
it has
never
lost
its
appeal
for
Englishmen
and all
who
have
a feeling for the English countryside. Yet if we turn
to the Barsetrhoyels to learn of Barsetshire, it is not there.
Several
people
including Trollope himself,
have
drawn
maps
of
the
country,
complete
with
railway
lines,
but
this
bare
outline
is
all that is to be
found
in the
novels
themselves.
In spite
- 78 -
of all that other
people
have
since written
about
the sunlight,
the
fields,
the gentle air of Barsetj Trollope has not
succeeded
in
realizing
his
county
as
George
Eliot
did hers and
Thomas
Hardy
his. His
names,
Barchester,
Eramley,
St.
Ewold*s,
Ullathorne,
Omnium,
Hogglestoc^, and
Plumstead
Episcopi can create a
reality
only for
those
who can
draw
on
their
own experience or
background
to
supply it, and the
details
of that
reality
will
vary
from
per-
son to
person.
Trollope did not create the world of Barsetshire;
he
evoked
hundreds
of Barsetshires
from
hundred's
of readers.
The
charm
and value of
this
for
people
uprooted
and
tossed
about
by war is undeniable, but its
'literary
worth
is
doubtful since its appeal is
limited.
More
nearly universal is
the value
found
In Trollope by a
second
group
of readers,
whose
point
of
view
is expressed in Elizabeth
Bowen's
Anthony
Trollope:
_ 286
A New
Judgement,
which
was
originally
a fantasy for radio pro-
duction. "Voiced by a yoiing
soldier
going to
battle
with a
borrowed
Trollope
novel,
their
new
judgement
Is that the Trollope characters
are a support against hopelessness, since they are stronger
than
circumstances. "It is
essential
for us, these
days,
to believe in
people, and in
their
power
to
live.
Not
just
In
heroes
or
monsters,
but in ordinary
people
with the
knack
of
living
ordinary
lives,...
287
We long for the ordinary."
The inference to be
drawn
from
this
is that Trollope*s
characters
have
a peculiar
power
to
comfort
and refresh only
when
the ordinary is the extraordinary, and it
becomes
of great im-
portance to
have
some
source of
assurance,
that one
need
be neither
hero-nor
monster
to
overcome
circumstance. For reassurance off
this
286Bowen,
Elizabeth,
Anthony
Trollope:. A New
Judgement,
Ltardoas, o*f««<,
Oxford University Press, 1946.
287ibid.«
pp.24
- 25.
- 79 -
sort
Miss
Bowen?
however,
provides the
young
soldier
not with
the novel that he had intended to take, hut the Autobiography,
and by doing so she has set the tone of
subsequent
serious
criticism.
If Trollope's great value is to prove that "it's
dogged
as
does
it"
then the Autobiography is his greatest achieve-
ment
and all that we
need
to
remember
of his vast output.
This
is the trend that
Trollopian
criticism
is taking
today, and it is. the Inevitable
outcome
of the constant
emphasis
that
intelligent
critics,
have
laid
upon
the Autobiography since
the beginning of the Trollope
revival.
The
result
of
this
close
examination and
consequent
appreciation is that it is the only
one of Trollope's
works
that
rests
on
firm
critical
rock., staun-
chly;
supported by Michael
Sadleir's
Qommentary.
This is proved
by the
failure
of the Stebbinses to destroy the
image
of Trollope
which
the Autobiography
reflects,
for in
many
ways
theirs
is a
clever
book,
slanted to catch the psychoanalytical fancy of the
times. At present
Trollope.
himself Is safe, but his great host
of
men and
women
are
drifting
nearer and nearer to a whirlpool
from
which
they are never
likely
to
emerge.
288
In
protest against
this
a
brief
study has
just
appeared in England
which,
judging by reviews,
makes
an attempt
to
turn the
emphasis
back
to the novels and
their
characters and
to
consider
them
not as
mere
bed-book
reading for people
unwilling
to
cope
with novels that experiment
beyond
the
limits
of the
eighteenth
century
tradition,
but as
fiction
that has
something
in
it of
permanent
value. Unfortunately, the author,
though
en-
thusiastic,
has
been
nervous
and hesitant, and generally
unskill^
ful
In presenting her case, with the
result
that at
least
one
288Brown,
Beatrice
Curtis,
Anthony
Trollope,
London,
Arthur
Barker, Ltd., 1950.
- 80 -
one
reviewer
has
felt
that "The
hook
Is one to puzzle
over...
But...£itsj
all-excusing merit...is that it
persuades
one
that a further and
more
attentive reading of the
novels
would
reveal a
greatness
beyond
what
one has yet discovered,
whether
289
of Trollope*s
greatness
or of his character"
A
more
attentive reading of the
whole
range
of the
novels
will
certainly reveal that Trollope Is not just a highly
competent
story-teller
with
a
gift
of sketching
life-like
char-
acters,
whose
main
claim to our regard is his
drawing
of his
own
bluff
and
honest
personality. This very
Autobiography
gives
us the clue, for in it Trollope is very definite In expressing
29 0
his
views
on the
purpose
and value of
fiction.
Because
he also
made
a point of saying that he
wrote
for
money
readers
have
tended
to dismiss his discussion of the
moral
nature
of
fiction
as
tri-
vial
and
superficial.
Nevertheless, Trollope was quite sincere
In his
belief
that the functionoof the novel was
both
to divert
and to instruct by Implication, and
most
of his own
books
gain
value and Interest
from
the
fact
that the
problem
with
which
he
dealt
was the one
with
which
he himself had struggled
through-
out his early
life,
the
difficulty
and the
prime
Importance
of.
retaining
one's
self-respect as a
human
being.
Fithithis
in
mind
we
shall
find
the
Autobiography
not
a record, of
literary
activity,
comic,
or interesting, or
admir-
able, but a
most
valuable gloss on the novels. In It Trollope
presents himself |cast as a boy despised by
everyone,
and
above
all
by himself. He
then
traces his struggles to gain the
good
28%otes and Queries, May
27,1950,
p. 242 .
290fcrollope,
Auto..,
pp.197*
- 203.
- 81 -
opinion of others, but
even
more
to regain his self-respect.
That
he has
expressed,
the
course
of
this
struggle largely in
terms
of
money
earned
and clubs joined has either
bothered
or pleased
many
readers, and let
them
to' think either that
Trollope was a
mercenary
snob,
or that he was a
remarkably
honest
man In an age that has
gained
a reputation for hypocrisy.
Both
these
Interpretations
have^I
believe^confused Trollope's
symbol
for his
success
with
his true goal.
When
he writes the.
final
sum of his
literary
earnings, the
famous
B68,939
17s. 6d.,
he is
merely
using his
symbol
for his
final
success
in his. long
struggle. We-
cannot
Ignore
Trollope's frequent
emphasis
on
money,
but neither can we say that to htm It was the
prime
good.
Since lack of it had
originally
destroyed his self-confidence
by
denying
him. a
normal
life
at
Harrow
and
Winchester
and
then
tossing
him Into a
London
world
with
which
he was not
equipped
to deal,, it Is neither unnatural nor culpable that he should
later
associate
wealth
with
happiness,
security, and his res-
tored self-respect.
That
he
never
confused
the
symbol
with
the
real
good
with
which
he associated It can be
seen
from
his treat-
ment
of the
whole
question of self-respect in. the novels.
Miss
Bowen's
young
soldier described the Trollope
characters as ordinary
people-who
"...know
what
they
want
and...
291
want what
they
want
all
out?
Many
of Trollope's
contemporary
critics
would
have
been
startled
at
such
a
statement,
for one
of
their
most
frequent
complaints
was that his
heroes
were
poor
creatures who
vacillated
interminably,
while
his
silly
heroines
never
seemed
to be able to
make
up
their
minds.
Neither
des-
cription
is accurate, for it is certainly true that the Trollope
29.1
Bowen,
Trollope, p.24.
8S -•
characters
very often do not
know
what
they
want,
yet
their
Indecision
does
not
stem
from
stupidity
or lack of
principle;
Rather,
their
difficulties
arise
from a combination of circum-
stance and
their
own
temporary
frailties,
and the
main
interest
of
the novels centres
upon
their
eventually
making
the
right
decision,
the one
which
will
preserve for
them
their
self-res-
pect.
In
its simplest form the
problem,
appears in The
Warden,
where
Mr. Harding,
whose
only
fault
was that of taking
his
position
for' granted,
prevails
against all the
massed
power
of
the
Archdeacon's
faction
to
make
and
keep*
to the only
decis.-.
ion
compatible with his
principles.
The struggle in
this
case
proves
relatively
straight-forward, since Mr. Harding is a
saintly
old man who
finds
little
in the world to
tempt
him. His
sole
concern Is to
distinguish
the course
which
will
enable
him to regain his
self-respect,
and
once
he has found it his
usually
mild and
amenable
temper
turns stubborn, and refuses
to
oblige those for
whom
he
Would
do anything
else
In the- world;
Barchester
Towers
has
none
of
this
element,
for It is
simply the
tale
of a war
between,
tyrants,
Mrs. Proudie and Mr.
Slope, complicated by the
exotic
and unpredictable natures of
Bertie
Stanhope
and the Slgnora Neroni. Largely
slapstick,
though
on a very high
level,
it is undoubtedly the Barset hovel
that
makes
us laugh the
most,
and so
will
probably continue to
win an audience. In the general
scheme
of the Barsetshire
Chronicles,
however,
its
chief
value is that it elaborates on
certain
of The;
Warden*
s
personages
and introduces the
most
famous
of all the Trollope characters, Mrs. Proudie.
-
83 -
When, we
pass
to
Doctor
Thorne,
however,
we
find
a
man
fighting
to
adhere
to
what
he
senses
to he
right
in the
face
of the
temptation
of
letting
a
worthless
young
man
drink
himself
to
death
so
that
a
beloved
adopted
daughter
may
Inherit
the fortune that
will
make
everything
smooth
before her*
Mi-
chael Sadieir
has
analyzed.this novel
as
though
It
were
chiefly
292
the story
of
Mary
Thorne,
but
Trollope
had a
tendency
to
spotlight,
the
main
concern
of a
novel
In
Its
title,
and has
done
so
In
this
case.
The
main
matter
of
Doctor
Thorne
is the
doc-
tor's
struggle
to
maintain
his
duty
to
himself against all
the
temptations;
prompted
by his
love
for
Mary.
The
Warden
and
Doctor
Thorne
show
as two men
for
whom
personal ambition
was
never
a
motive
complicating
the
moral
issue,
but with
Framley
Parsonage
the
whole
social
scene
becomes
more
tangled
and the
Issues
less
cut and
dried. Nearly
everyone
In
Framley
Parsonage
has
difficulty
In
deciding
what
he
should
do,
but
the
chief
emphasis;
falls
upon
the
young
clergyman:
Mark
Robarts*
Though
Framley
Parsonage
has
sometimes
been
dismissed
as
trivial,
it is the
Barset novel
which
Indirectly
presents;
Trollope's
case
for the
virtues
of a
rural
English society al-
ready
disappearing.
In
this
book
we
have
not
only Individuals
trying
to
solve Individual
problems,
but an
older
tradition
of
responsibility
both
to the
land
and to
one's
associates
striv-
ing,
against the. self-seeking,
dog^eat-dog
activities
of the de-
generate
Sowerbys
and
their
upstart friends, supported
by the
great
power
of
wealth
the
Duke
of Omnium. The
difficulties
of
Sadie
Ir,
Trollope,
pp.387
- 388:.
-
84 -
remaining,
a
conscience
-
easy
young
clergyman
in
such
an en-
vironment,
when one Is
both
personally
ambitious
and
socially
vain
are
obvious,
and
Mark
Robarts
comes
very
close
to com-
plete disgrace
and
self-hatred.
Yet
eventually
toe
chooses
the
only
path
that
will
lead
him
back
to
self-respect
and
humbly
prepares
to
sacrifice
everything
to pay off his
debts. That
no such
drastic
measures
are
required
of him,
since
the
Luftons
come
to.
his
aid,
points
two
typical
Trollopian
morals:
the
essential
decency
of the
older
order
in
rural
England,
and the.
fact
that
In
Barsetshire,
though
a man may make a
serious
mis-
take,
his
recognition
and.
repentance
of it
will
guarantee
his
return
to
grace.
The Small
House
at
Allington
is a
Barset novel
neither
In setting
nor In
outlook,
as
Trollope's Instinct
told
htm when
he
hesitated
to
Include
it In the
Barset
Chronicles.
In our
search
for the
central
motif
of
self-respect
In
these
chronicles
it
will
be as
well
to
pass
for the moment to by
far
the
most
subtle
and
engrossing
of
them
all,
The
last
Chronicle
of
Barset;
In
it two
characters; clash
who
have
been
developing from
Bar-
chester
Towers
through Framley Parsonage,
Mrs.
Proudie
and the
Reverend
Mr.
Crawley
of
Hagglestock. Both
of
these
creations;
are
worth
study
in the
light
of
Trollope's
preoccupation with
the value
of
integrity,
for
they
of
all
the
Barsetshire
person-
ages
are the
most
fully
drawn
and
justly
the
most
famous.
To
Trollope, self-respect
was of
necessity
based
in
self-knowledge,
and so the
most
dangerous
force that
eould
drive
anyone
was
that pride
which
led to
self-deception,
and
thesfcAboth
Mrs.
Proudie
and Mr.
Crawley expresses
Itself
in a
-
85 -
militant
and
uncompromising
righteousness.
In The
Last Chronicle
of Barset these
two
stiff-necked creatures clash
for the
last
time,
and it is the
hitherto indomitable
Mrs,
Proudie that gives
way. The
reason for
her
defeat
and the
explanation Trollope
later
gave
for her
death
give
us a
clearer notion
of how his
mind
worked
on
this
question with
which
he
concerned
himself,
Mr.
Crawley
prevails
over
Mrs,
Proudie
because
he has
gained
insight
and so
recognized
his much
prized righteousness
for
what
it
is, pride.
He is the
only proof that
need
ever
be
cited
to
dismiss
the
notion that Trollope's great
gift
to the
world
is the
rather doubtful doctrine
of
"it's
dogged
as
does
it."
Through
much of the
latter
half
of
this
very long novel
Mr.
Crawley
clings
to
this
idea,
because
it
supports
him in his
self-righteousness,
but
finally
he
recognizes
it for the
mislead-
ing
advice
it Is and makes his
grand
gesture
of
self-abnegation.
Xn doing
so he
regains
the
self-respect
which
he had
destroyed
by
his
pride years before,
and so
goes
into battle with
Mrs.
Proudie with
the
strongest
armour
that Trollope
can
give
him.
In contrast,
Mrs.
Proudie
meets
him
with
no
such
self-
knowledge
and has
the'recognition
of the
nature
of her
righteous-
ness
forced
upon
her by
defeat.
From
that
moment she is a
bro-
ken
and
repentant
woman,
and
since
she has
throughout,
been
portrayed
as a
fundamentally
good
person
and
sincere Christian
we
accept
the
sudden
collapse.
In the
novel
she
dies
of a
293.
heart attack,
though
many
people
have
maintained
in 'the
light
293cf.
Walpole,
op.
cit:,
p. 66.
-
86 -
of
Trollope's
own
anecdote
that
he
murdered
her in
cold
blood.
Elsewhere
in the
Autobiography,
however,
he
says
that
Mrs.
Proudie
died
of
repentance,
a
repentance
too
sudden
and too
late,
that
resulted
not
from
self-searching
but
from exposure..
On the
basis
of the
Barsetshire
novels
some
sort
of
a
case might
be made out to
prove
that
Trollope
confused
wealth with
his
goal
of
self
respect,
for It Is
quite
true
that
in
Barsetshire
"all
have
won and
all
shall
have
prizes."
After
they
have
chosen
the
honourable course
In
each case
Mr.
Harding,
Doctor Thorne,
Mark
Robarts
and Mr;
Crawley all
eventually
spend
the
rest
of
their
lives
in
easy circumstances.
Mr.
Harding
and
Mr. Crawley gain
good
livings,
while Doctor Thorne marries
the
fabulous
heiress,
Miss Dunstable.
Mark
Robart's
benefits
are
simply
the
payment
of his
debts,
and, as we
have
noticed
before,
this
results
from
the
peculiarly
kindly
and
unworldly
attitude
of
true
Barset.
Trollope
would
probably
make
this
his
defense
against
the
suggested charge,
for in the
older
gentler
world
of
Barset
It is a
case
of: Be
upright,
and
all
good
things
shall
come to you.
We
have
only
to
cross
the
border
to
Allington
to
find
a
slightly
different
world which contains
two of the
most
puzz-
ling
of the
Trollope
characters,
Lily
Dale
and
John Earaes.
Here
we
have
two
young
people
who act
with
principle
and
courage,
and
are
rewarded with disappointment
and
frustration.
Both
have
a
background
of
Barset
society,
and
both
are
victimized
by a
less
honourable world. John
Eames
Trollope
describes
as a
"hobble-
dehoy",
endowing
him
with
an
origin
and
background
similar
to
his
own. He
even gives
him a
similar
clerk's
job in the
civil
-
87 -
service,
and
altogether
the
resemblance
between
Johnny
Eames
and
the
young
Anthony
Trollope
is
quite
marked.
With
the.
London
schemers
Amelia
Roper
and
Madelina
Desmollnes
he has
his
troubles,
but his
good
sense
and
courage
extricate
him
from
these
entanglements.
It is
Adolphus
Crosbie, weak,selfish
and
cowardly,
who
ruins
John
Eames'
life
by
destroying
Lily
Dale's
faith
in
herself.
More
light
may be
thrown
on
Trollope's
purpose
in
this
story
by
comparing
It
with
The
Belton Estate.
I
have
never
seen
the
connection
between
these
two
novels
noted,
yet
there
is a
plain
parallel
between
the
stories
of
Lily
Dale,
John
Eames, and
Adolphus
Crosbie,
and
Clara
Amedroz,
Will
Belton,
and Captain
Aylmer.
If
John
Eames is the
young
Anthony,
Will
Belton
Is
Anthony
self-aware
and
self-confident.
Where Eames
fails,
Belton
is
successful,
and,
like
his
Barsetshire counter-
parts,
ends
up
with
both
his
self-respect
and his
reward.
Surely
the difference
may be
traced
to the
fact
that
in The
Small
House
at
Allington
the new
order
of a
selfish
and
corrupt aristocracy
and
upper
middle
class
has
overcome
the
true Barset gentry, whi^fe.
IDhe
Belton Estate plays
itself
out in the
heart
of some
county
where
the
older standards
still
prevail.
In
the
later
novels
the
difficulties
of
maintaining
one's
integrity
become more and more
complicated
by the
wider
opportunities
offered
for
mistakes
and
mishaps
in
parliamentary
life
and the
polite
society
of
London.
By 1876, when he
wrote
the
Autobiography
Trollope
had
learned
to
describe
the
world
he
dealt
with
in
terms
quite
different
from
his
picture
of the
decent
and
unselfish society
off
Barsetshire.
Having-
moved
once
-
88 -
and for all from
this
society
Into
that
of the
present
reality
he turned his
attention
from
men and women
whose
sense
of
duty
to
what
they
know
to be
right
triumphs over
difficulties;
to
those
who
fail,
yet
repent;
and
finally
to
those
who,
placing
no value whatsoever
on
their
own
Integrity
are
driven
entirely
by
pride
and
ambition:
In
these times,
when
the
desire
to be
honest
Is
pressed
so
hard,
is so
violently
assaulted
by
the ambition
to be
great,
in
which
riches
are the
easiest
road
to
greatness;
when
the
temptations
to
which
men are
subjected
dull
their
eyes
to the
perfected
Iniquities?
of
others;
when
it
Is so
hard for
a man to
decide
vigorously
that
the
pitch,
which
so
many
are
handling,will
defile
him
if
it
be touched;-
men's
Conduct
will
be
actuated
much
by
what
Is
from
day to day
depicted
to
them
as
leading
to
glorious
or
Inglorious
results.294
This
is
Trollope's
expression
of
his purpose
In the
non-Barset novels,
and
it
is one
which
he
achieved
in
book
after
book.
.
First
among-
the characters
he
draws
in
this
endeavour
are
Julia
Brebazon,
later
Lady
Ongar,
and
Lady
Laura Standish.
They
may be
taken
as
typical
of
those
who
make
one
mistake,
and
then having recognized tt, repent it for
the
rest
of
their
lives.
For
both
of
these
women "the
ambition
to be
great"
is too
strong,
causing
them
to
allow
pride
or
false
reasoning
to
turn
them
from
their
less
exalted
but
honest
lovers,
Hugh
Claverlng
and
Phineas
Finn,
to men
whose
wealth
is
their
sole
asset.
Julia
Brahazon
has both
too
much
worldly
pride
to
marry
a
young
schoolmaster,
and complete confidence
in her
ability
to
handle
any man,
even
the
difficult
Lord
Ongar,
Lady
Laura's motives
are not so
simple,
and with
her the
situation
is
far
more
complex;.
While
Julia
Bra-
kazon
has
beggared
herslf
by
extravagance,
Lady
Laura
has
Trollope,
Auto.,
p 200
-
89 -
sacrificed
her
fortune
to pay her
brother's debts.
Her
great
fault
is not
selfishness,
but a
self-deceiving
pride
which
she
rationalizes
as
worldly
common
sense and" reasonableness.
Like
Julia
she has
complete confidence
in her
ability
to do
her duty
in the
sphere
which
she has
chosen,
but
both
women
have
allowed
pride
to
blind
them
to the
duty they
owe
them-
selves,
the
sense
that
would
prevent
them
from degrading
them-
selves
to the
level
of
merchandise.>
and
shoddy
at
that.
Trol-
lope
pities
them*
however,
as
people
who
have
deceived themselves
rather
than
deliberately
designed
to
deceive others.
The
lives
they
bring
upon
themselves
Inspire
pity,
and
it
is a
pity
inten-
sified
by the
irony
of
their
fates.
The
Julia
who
considered
her
position
In the
eyes
of the
world,
to be
more
Important than
her
Integrity
as a
human,
being,
ends
with
a
doubtful
name,
the
victim
of the
cheapest
intriguers.
Once
so
sure
of her
Influence
over
men, she
loses
Hugh
Clavering
and
sinks
to a
point
where
even
the
wretched Archie
can be
persuaded
that
she
would
con-
sider
his proposal.
Lady
Laura's
fate
has a
similar
ironic
twist:
the woman who
placed all
her
trust
in her
good
sense
and strong
Intelligence
finally
loses
her
mind
in the
horror
of
the
situation
she has
brought
upon
herself.
The
rejected
Phineas Finn
and
Hugh
Clavering
were
chief
among,
the
Trollope
heroes
whom
contemporary reviewers
slated
as
being
vacillating;.
That they
seem
to
lack
the
con-
viction
of the
earlier
Far.set
heroes
results
simply from
the
far
more
difficult
world they
struggle
In. Neither
is In the
least
heroic,
and
both
are
romantic
and
Impressionable, with
the
result
that
they
fall
prey
to the
guile
of men and women
- 90 -
who
work
on
their
impulsiveness for
their
own purposes. Tet
both Phineas and
Hugh
have
that
sense of the
supreme
import-
ance
of
integrity
which
prevents
them
from
taking
the step
that
would
lead
Inevitably
to
self-disgrace.
Phineas
will
not
vote against; his
convictions;
Hugh
will,
not go
back
on his
word
to Florence Burton. The temptations in each case are
great.
For Phineas a
little
more
compliance
would
mean
fur-
ther
success in his
political
career
rather
than a
lame
with-
drawal to
Ireland;
while to
Hugh
Is
offered
a
beautiful
wife,
with
an
Income
of
E7,Q00
a year. Unlike the unfortunate
Julia
and
Lady
Laura they recognize these
goods
as of
less
ultimate
value
than
their
own
self-respect.
Bridging
the gap
between
these novels and the savage
The
Prime
Minister
and The lay We
Live
Now is
that
exotic
among
the
Trollope
works.
The Eustace
Diamonds.
To
anyone
reading
Trollope
for analyses of men and
women
wrestling,
with
ethical
problems
Lizzie
Eustace at
first
seems
an
anomaly,
though, perhaps
some
distant
relation
of the Signora Neroni.
Lizzie
never faced an
ethical
problem In her
life,
yet
Trollope
had a
larger
purpose than sheer
amusement
In his
careful
draw-
ing
of
this
diverting
figure.
The
criticism
of the commercial
Ideals
of his age
which
we saw beginning in Framley Parsonage
and constantly Implied In the three
books
we
have
just
examined,
in
The Eustace
Diamonds
becomes
the
theme
of the novel.
Here
integrity
of character has
been
almost completely
swamped
and
self-seeking
rides
high. A group of worldly and
selfish
people
are
themselves
victimized,
by the
perfect
product of the
society
they
have
created,
Lizzie
Eustace. It is
significant
that
except
for
the Signora Neroni and Grlselda Grantly, neither of
whom
was ever intended to be
human,Lizzie
is the only Trollope
woman
whose;
appearance
Is constantly
emphasized.
She is a
remarkably
pretty
woman,
but Trollope
manages
to
convey
the
impression that her
beauty
was
just
a
little
flashy. This
showiness
Is all of a piece with the
whole
society in
which
she
moves,
a world
where
appearance
is- everything. The im-
portance that
Lizzie
herself attaches to externals
causes
her
downfall. The reason that she Is
determined
to
have
the
dia-
monds
is that to her they are the
visible
sigh/ and proof of
the
wealth
and. position she has acquired by her
marriage.
To
Lizzie
everything,
from
a
memorized
passage
from
Queen
Mab
to
her
little
son, is
Important
only as a
means
of giving her
the
appearance
of being
something:
she Isn't.
These
are the
weapons
with
which
she defeats all who deal as she
does
In ex-
ternals,
from
the
pompous
Lord
Fawn
to the ambitious
Frank
Greystock. Eventually,
however,,
in the face of the
solid
and
honest
persistence of the
lawyer
Camperdown,.
her stupid
game
to
keep,
the
diamonds
falls,
and
when
she loses
them
she loses
all
the other trappings she has gained. She
keeps
the
solid
benefits
of her
marriage,
her
E.4.00
a year, but in her own.
eyes
the
glitter
has
gone
from
her
life,
and she and her
Income
fall
victim
to
someone
just
as
unscrupulous
as she but far
more
real-
istic,
the
Reverend
Mr. Emilys.
Mr.
Emil|u\j)s,
like
Lizzie,
belongs
to
comedy;
but be-
cause
he
knows
exactly
what
he
wants
and and
will
do anything
OJ
to
get It, herserves as^rehearsal for Ferdinand
Lopez
of The
Prime
Minister and
Melmotte
of The Way We
Liffe
Now. The
Prime
- 92 -
Minister
presents a mixture of two worlds, in
which
an un-
scrupulous adventurer invades a decent household
where
integrity
and
affection
are the
chief
goods.
Th«$
Integrity
and
affection
he
uses
for his, own
ends
and by his unbridled ambition
kills
his
wife and destroys his father-in-law's happiness.
Lopez
has not
even
a
hint
of grandeur to
condone
his machinations;
all
his
schemes
are on a miserably small
scale,
and In his sys-
tematic robbing of his father-in-law he
descends
to haggling
over
even
the smallest
bills.
He is all
sham.,
and
when
his
schemes
are
finally
tumbling
about
him. it is that mistress of
sham
Lizzie
Eustace who gives him the
coup
de grace. In
res-
ponse,
to his
florid
appeal to fly with
him"to
some
romantic
clime
with her
£400
a year
Lizzie
dismisses him with a bored
"Mr.
Lopez,
don't be such a
fool."
Fool he
certainly
was, but
a very
dangerous
one. The
Prime
Minister has
been
criticized
on the
grounds
that it is simply two novels strung together on
the
flimsiest
connection. This is not
really
just,
for the
havoc
that the miserable
Lopez
causes
even
in the
Palliser
house
hold
is a
symptom
of the
disruptive
effect
the way off
life
he
represents
can
have
on
even
the
most
high-minded
and upright.
Integrity,
in the person of Plantagenet
Palliser,
holds out against the new order represented by
Lopez
In
Ufae
Prime
Minister,
but with The Way We Live Now all
relics
of the
decency
and
honour
which
were
the
norm
in Barsetshire
have
dis-
29(5
appeared.
As Michael
Sadleir
has observed,
this
is the novel
Sadleir,
op.
cit.,
p, 396.
- 95 -
in
which
Trollope
seems
really
to despair of
humanity.
Mel-
mot
te
is the
final
expression of the new
ideals,
the Incarna-
tion
of a heartless and unscrupulous ambition that by its very
nature is
self-destructive.
In
this
book
Trollope has reached
the
position
that
once
men
have
no sense of duty to
their
own
integrity
or
responsibility
to
anyone
else,
they destroy both
others and. themselves.
These
novels ^then,are a
fair
sampling of the
major
works
of a writer
whom
we
have
not too
willingly
granted a
niche
among
the
lasting
English
novelists
as an unusually
skill-
ful
depicter of mid-Victorian men and
manners,
complacently
realistic
and aiming
solely
at
amusement.
But
even
this brief
examination of his
most
familiar
books
shows
Trollope to be
Instead
a great
novelist,
whose
major
concern is one of univer-
sal
importance and
ethical interest:
the
problem
of how to
live
in
such a way as to maintain
one's
integrity.
Because
the
struggle
he depicts was one
which
he himself had experienced in
a world that was not
made
easy for him, his teaching has the
breath of
life
that
comes
only from the understanding gained
by experience. In
this
estimate of Trollope's value the Barset-
shire
Chronicles
must
take second place in his
achievement,
for
in
this
world the struggles are
seldom
very
complex
and never
unsuccessful.
It is the
later
novels, that the
full,
force of
Trollope's
own
courageous
belief
in the
supreme
value for
society
of
personal
integrity
and unselfishness
finds
expression; and It
is
this
strength of
conviction,
combined
with the urbanity and
skill
as a
story-teller
Yrtilch
have
never
been
denied him, that
- 94 -
entitles
Trollope
to be
lifted
once and for all from the ranks
of
the second-rate to
join
the
company
of the
great
English
novelists.
I
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or
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3
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Colburn,
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•
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I
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I
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'
Paul,
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Pavey,
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Anthony
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Derek
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Lord
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Cassell
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Russell,
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vols,
London,
Macmillan and. Co., 1895.
Sadle^r,
Michael, Trollope: A
Commentary,
London,
Jonathan
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George,
A History_ of Nineteenth Century
Literature
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London,
Macmillan and
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Speare,
Morris
Edmund,
The
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Novel, New
York,
Oxford
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Stebbins,
Lucy
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arid
Stebbins, Richard Poate, The
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The Qh.ronicle
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,
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Columbia
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Stephen,
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4
vols,
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VII
Swinnerton,
Frank,
A
London
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London,
Martin
Seeker,
1928.
Wagenknecht,
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Cavalcade
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Henry
Holt
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1943.
Walker,
Hugh,
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Walpole,
Hugh,
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Ltd.,
1928.
Walpole,
Hugh,
The
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The
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1925.
Weygandt,
Cornelius,
A
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D.
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Century
Company,
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1925.
Wingfield-Stratford,
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The
Victorian
Aftermath,
London,
Routledge,
1933-
Wise,
Thomas
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Letters
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1933.
Wotton,
Mabel
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Word
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Lon-
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Wright,
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Young,
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Woolf,
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III.
Periodical
Articles.
Allen,
Hope
E., " The
Text
of
Trollope
",
Times
Literary
Supplement,
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4, 1942,
|.180.
Belloc,
Hilaire,
"
Anthony
Trollope
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London
Mercury,
vol
.
n,
1932-33,
PP-
150-57.
Bettany,
F. M., " In
Praise
of
Anthony
Trollope's
Novels
",
l°l£n±£htl£
Seviewj.
vol77,
N.
S. ,
1905,
pp.
I000-I0II.
VIII
Booth,
Bradford Allen, ed., " Preface ", The Trollopian, Spring
I945<
-
Booth,
Bradford Allen, " Editorial Note ", The Trollopian, March,
1946.
Box, H. Oldfield, 11 The Decline and Rise of Anthony Trollope 11,
Listener, December 28, 1944,.pp.
718-719.
Bradford,
Gamaliel Jr., " Anthony Trollope ", Atlantic Monthly,
vol
89, 1902, pp. 426-432.
Bush,
Douglas, " The Victorians, God Bless Them ", Bookman, vol
74, I93I-I932, pp. 589-597.
Cecil,
Lord David, " Victorian Novelists ", National Review,
vol
99, pp. 652-664.
Chapman, R. W., " The Text of Trollope ", Times Literary Supp-
lement, Jan. 25, 1941, p. 48; March 22, 1941,
P.144;
Feb.
8,
1941, p. 72; March I, 1941, p. 108.
Chapman, R. W., " Trollope's American Senator ", Times Liter-
Supplement, June 21, 1941, p. 304; July 12, p. 335.
Chapman, R. W., " The Text of Trollope's Ayala' s Angel ",
Modern
Philology, vol 39, 1942, pp. 287-294.
Chapman, R. W. " The Text of Trollope's Sir Harry Hotspur ",
Notes and Queries,,Jan. I, 1944, pp. 2-3.
Chapman, R. W., " Trollopian Criticism ", Times Literary Sup-
plement, July 5, 1941, p. 323; July 26, 1941, p. 359.
Chapman, R. W., et. al, " The Text of Phineas
Finn
", Times
Literary
Supplement, March 25, 1944, p. 156;
April
15, p. 192.
Chapman R. W., " The Text of Trollope's Autobiography Re-
view of English Studies, vol 17, pp. 90-94.
Chapman, R. W., " The Text of Trollope's Novels ", Review of
English
Studies, vol 17,
pp.184-192.
Chapman, R. ff., " The Text of Phineas Redux ", Review of Eng-
lish
Studies, vol 17, pp. 322-3^1.
Cooper, H., "Trollope and Henry James ", Modern Language
Notes, vol 58, 1943, P- 558.
•Edwards, Ralph, " Trollope on Church Affairs Times Liter-
ary Supplement, Oct. 21, 1944, p, #16.
Ellis,
S. M., " Trollope and Mid-Victorianism ", Fortnightly
Review, vol 122, 1927, pp. 422-425.
" English Character and Manners as Portrayed by Anthony
Trol-
lope ", Westminster Review, Jan. 1885, pp.
53-100.
TV
Escott,
T. H. S., "
Anthony
Trollope:
An
Appreciation
and Rem-
iniscence
11,
Fortnightly
Review,
vol
80, N. S.
,
1906, pp.
I095-II04.
"
T. H. S.
Escott's
Anthony
Trollope
",
reviewed:
Athenaeum,
Oct.
4, 1913, pp.
337-338;
Nation,
Sept.
20, 1913,
pp,9I8-
920.
M
Everybody's
Books:
Popular
Tastes
and
Clever Enterprises,
1837-1937
",
Times
Literary
Supplement,May
I, 1937, pp. 328-
329.
F.,
M., " The
Re-Coming
of
Anthony
Trollope
",
Dial,
vol 34,
"
1903, pp.
I4I-I42.
Freud
enrich,
C.
J.',
"
Victorian Novelists: Their Sales
",
Notes
and
O^ueries^
May 4, 1946, p. 193-
Fuller,
Edward,
"
Real
Forces
in
Literature Atlantic
Monthly,
1903, vol
$1, pp.
270-274.
Greenberg,
Clement,
" A
Victorian
Novel
",
Partisan
Review,
Sum-
mer,
1944, pp.
234-238.
Gwynn,
Stephen,
" The
English
Novel
in the
Nineteenth
Century
",
Edinburgh
Review,
Oct.,
1902, pp.
487-506.
Hamilton,
Lord Ernest,
" The
Midvics
",
Cornhill,
vol
75, pp.
257-270.
Harter,
Eugene
W., " The
Future
of
Trollope
",
Bookman,
vol 2,
1905,
pp.
I37-I4I.
House,
Humphrey,
"
Michael
Sadleir's Trollope
", New
Statesman
and
Nation,
Sept.
29, 1945,
pp.215-216.
Huling, Elizabeth,
" Mr.
Trollope's
New
Wine
", New
Republic,
April,
16, 1945,
p.533-
Huxley,
Leonard,
"
Anthony
Trollope
and the
Cornhill
",
Cornhill,
vol
73, 1932, pp.
758-766.
James,
Henry,
"
Anthony
Trollope
",
Century
Magazine,
July,
1883,
pp.
385-395.
Kellett,
B. E:., "
Mudie's
",
Spectator, July
16, 1937; pp. 100-
101; July
23, 1937, p. 149.
La
Farge,
Christopher,
" I Know he was
Right
",
Saturday
Re-
view
of
Literature, Jan.
27, 1940, pp.
12-14.
Lord,
W.
Frewen,
" The
Novels
of
Anthony
Trollope
",
Nineteenth
Century,
vol
49, 1901, pp.
805-814.
Macarthy,
Desmond,
"
Trollope
on the
Stage
New
Statesman,
vol
27, 1944, P 252.
M. , F. ,
" Is He
Popen.joy?
",
Kenvon
Review,
vol
7, 1945, PP-
723-724.
X
" Menander's
Mirror:
Imagining the
Future
", Times
Literary
Supplement, Dec. 9, 1944, p, 591.
" Menander's
Mirror:
On
Picking
Sides
", Times
Literary
Sup-
plement,
Oct. 9, 1943, p. 483.
Morgan,
Charles,
"
Trollope
Today
Atlantic
Monthly, May,
1946, pp.
.125-127.
Munson,
Gorham,
" Who are our
Favourite
Nineteenth
Century
Authors?
",
College English,
vol 5, pp.
291-296.
Obituaries
of Anthony
Trollope:
Athenaeum,
Dec. 9, 1882, pp.
772-773;
Blackwood
's,
Feb., 1883,
316-320;
Good
Words,
vol
24, 1882, pp. 142-144;Macmillan's Magazine, Jan.,1883,pp.
236-240;
Punch, Dec. 16, 1882, p. 287.
Parker,
W. M., " Anthony
Trollope
and 1
Maga.
1 ", Blackwood's,
vol.257,
pp.
57-64.
Partridge,
Ralph, " Lucy and
Richard
Stebbins'
The
Trollopes
New Statesman and
Nation,
Oct. 12, 1946, pp.
268-269.
Payn,
James,
"
Some
Literary
RecollectiOBS
",
Cornhill,
vol ?3,
3, N. S., 1884, pp.
41-58.
Peck, Harry
Thurston,
" Anthony
Trollope
Bookman,
vol 13,
1901, pp.
II4-I25.
Piper,
lyfanwy, "
Trollope
", New Statesman, Feb. 17, 1940,
p. 209.
Pollock,
W. H., " Anthony
Trollope
Harper's, vol 66, 1883,
pp.
907-912.
Punch, June 5, 1880- Oct. 16,
1880,"
1 The Beadle, or The
Latest Chronicle
of
Small
Beerchester
' by Anthony
Dollop
".
Randeil, Wilfred
L., " Anthony
Trollope
and his
Work
",
Fort-
nightly
Review, vol 108, 1920, pp.
459-467.
Richardson,
Dorothy, "
Saintsbury
and Art for
Art's
Sake in
England
PMLA,
1944, pp.
243-260.
Sadleir,
Michael,
"The Caldagate Novels ", Times
Literary
Supplement ,Dec. 20, 194I, p. 643-
Sampson,
A., "
Trollope
in the Twentieth Century ", London
Mercury,
vol 35,
1936-1937,
pp.
371-377.
Street,
S. S., " Anthony
Trollope
",
Cornhill,
N. S. Vol 10,
1901, pp.
349-355.
Taylor,
Robert H., "
Letters
to
Trollope
", The
Trollopian,
Sept.,
1946, pp. 5-9.
"Trollope's
House
of
Commons
", Times.
Literary
Supplement,
March 20, 1937, pp.
193-194.
XI
" Trollope's
Novels
",
Edinburgh
Review, Oct., 1877, pp.
455-488.
Vincent,
C. J., "
Trollope:
A
Victorian
Augustan
", Queen 's
Quarterly,
vol 52, 1945, pp. 415-428.
Waugh,
Arthur,
"
Trollope after
Fifty
Years
",
Fortnightly
Review,vol
132, 1932, pp. 712-724.
Whibley,
Charles,
"
Trollope's
Autobiography','
English
Re-
view,
1923, vol 37, pp. 33-38.
Wildman,
John
H., " About
Trollope
in a Postwar
Mood
", The
Trollopian,
March, 1946, pp. 17-22.
Wildman,
John
H., " Anthony
Trollope
Today ",
College
Eng-
lish,
vol 7, 1946, pp. 397-399-
Woolf,
Virginia,
" Phases of
Fiction
",
Bookman,
1929, pp.
123-130.
IV. Contemporary Reviews of the
Trollope
Novels.
The Macdgrmotts of
Ballycloran:
Athenaeum, May 15, 1847,
p.
517.
Ih§. Nellys
and the
08Kellys:
Athenaeum,
July
15, 1848, p.701.
La
Vendee: Athenaeum,
July
6, 1850, p. 708.
The Warden: Athenaeum, Jan. 27,
I8551,
p. 107.
Barchester
Towers:'Athenaeum, May 30, 1857, pp. 689-690;
Westminster
Review, Oct., 1857, pp. 594-596.
Three
Clerks:
Natiojial
Review, Oct., 1858, pp. 427 ff.
Doctor
Thorne:
Athenaeum, June 5, 1858, p. 719;
National
Review,
Oct., 1858, pp. 431 ff.
The
Bertrams:
Athenaeum, March 26, 1859, p. 420;
National
Review,
April,
1859, p. 565, and
July,
1859, pp. 187-199.
Castle
Richmond: Athenaeum, May 19,
I860,
p. 681; Westmin-
ster
Review, Oct.,
I860,
pp. 588-589.
Orley
Farm: Athenaeum, Oct. 4, 1862, p. 704;
Dublin
Univer-
sity
Magazine,
April,
I863,
p.437;
National
Review, Jan.,
1862, pp. 27-40.
Framley
Parsonage:
National
Review,
July,
I861, p. 240;
Westminster
Review,
July,
1861, pp. 282-284.
Rachel
Ray: Athenaeum, Oct. 17, 1863, pp. 492-493; West-
minster
Review,
January,
1864, pp. 291-293.
Small
House at
Allington;
Athenaeum, March 26, 1864, pp.
XII
437-438;
National
Review,
April,
1864, P. 582;
Atlantic
Monthly., August,
1864, pp. 254-256;
North American
~Re^~
view,
July,
1864,pp. 292-298;
Westminster
Review,
July,
1864, pp. 251-252. " *
Can You
Forgive
Her?;
Athenaeum,
Sept.
2, 1865, pp. 305-
306;
Westminster
Review,
July,
1865, pp. 284-285.
Miss
Mackenzie:
Dublin
University
Magazine,
May, 1865, p.
576;
Westminster
Review,
July,
1865, pp. 283-284.
The_
Belton
Estate1
Athenaeum. Feb. 3, 1866, p. 166;
Nation,
Jan.
4, 1866, pp. 21-22.
Nina
Balatka:
Athenaeum, March 2, 1867, p. 288.
The
Claverings:
Athenaeum,June 15, 1867, p. 783;
Black-
wood
's,
Sept.,
1867, pp. 275-278;
Fortnightly
Review,
June
I, 1867, pp. 771-772.
The
Last
Chronicle
of
Barset:
Athenaeum, Aug. 3, 1867, p.
141; Blackwood's, Sept.,
1867, p. 277;
Westminster
RE-
view,
July,.
1867, p. 309.
Linda
Tressel:
Athenaeum, May 23, 1868, pp. 724-725;
Nation,
June
18, 1868, pp. 494-495.
Phineas
Finn:
Contemporary
Review,
Sept.,
1869, pp. 142-143.
He
Knew
He Was
Right:
Westminster
Review,
July,
1869, pp..
302-305.
The
Vicar
of
Bullhampton:
Athenaeum,
April
30, 1870, p. 574;
Blackwood's,
May, 1870, pp. 647-648.
Brown,
Jones
and
Robinson: Westminster
Review,
April,
I87I,
pp.
574-575.
Sir
Harry Hotspur:
Athenaeum, Nov. 19, 1870, p. 527.
Ralph
the.
Heir:
Athenaeum,
April
15,
I87I,p.
456;
North
American
Review,
April,
187I, pp. 433-441.
The
Golden
Lion
of
Granpere,
Athenaeum,.May
25, 1872, p. 578.
The
Eustace
Diamonds: Athenaeum: Oct. 26, 1872, p. 627;
Nation,
Nov. 14, 1872, p. 320.'
Phineas
Redux: Athenaeum: Jan. 10, 1874, p. 53;
Atlantic
Monthly,
May, 1874, pp- 617-618;
Nation,
March 12, 1874,
pp.
174-175.
Lady.
Anna: Athenaeum,
April
II,IB8?4,p. 485-
Harry
Heathcote:
Athenaeum, Nov. 7, 1874, p. 606; Westmin-
ster
Review,
April,
1875, p. 558. -
XIII
The
Way. We
Live
How: Athenaeum, June 26, 1875, p. 851;
Nation,
Sept.
2, 1875, pp. 153-154;
Westminster
RE-
view,
Oct. I, 1875, p. 530.
The
Prime
Minister)
Athenaeum,
July
I, 1876, p.' 15;
Atlan-
tic
Monthly,
Aug., 1876, pp. 245-246;
Nation,
July
20,
1876, p. 45. ~"
The
American
Senator:
Athenaeum, June 16, 1877, p, 766; At-
lanta
Monthly.,
Oct., 1877, p. 509.
!§.
He
Popen.joy?:
Athenaeum, May 4, 1878, p. 567.
M for an Ey_e: Athenaeum, Jan. II, 1879, p. 47;
Black-
wood
's,
March, 1879, pp. 338-339;
Nation,
April
24, 1879,
p.
290.'
42*22,
Caldagate:
Athenaeum, June 14, 1879, p. 755;
Nineteenth
Century,
Aug., 1880, p. 340.
Cousin
Henry, Athenaeum,
October
18, 1879, p. 495.
The
Duke's
Children:
Athenaeum, May 29, 1880, p. 695;
Nation,
Aug. 19, 1880, p. 138-139;
Nineteenth
Century,
Aug., 1880,
p.
340;
Westminster
Review, Oct., 1880, p. 574..
Dr.
Wprtle
's
School:
Athenaeum, Jan. 15, 1881, p. 93;
Nation,
March
10, 1881, pp. 172-173;
Westminster
Review,
July,
1881,
pp.
283-284.
Ayala's
Angel:
Athenaeum, May 21,
I881,p.686;Harper's,
Oct.,
1881,
pp.
794-794;"Nation,
Sept.29,
1881, p. 257; West-
Minster
Review, Oct., I881, pp. 566-567.
Kept
in the Dark: Athenaeum, Nov. 18, 1882, p. 658; Westmin-
ster
Review, Jan., 1883, p. 287..
Marion
Fay:Athenaeum, June 24, 1882, pp. 793-794.
The
Fixed
Period:
Athenaeum, March II, 1882, pp. 314-315;
Westminster
Review,"
July,
1882, pp.. 285-286.
Mr.
Scarborough's
Family:
Athenaeum, lay 12, 1883, p. 600.
The
Landleaguers:
Athenaeum, Nov. 24, 1883, p. 666.
An Old
Man's
Love:
Athenaeum,
April
5, 1884, p. 438; West-
minster
Review,
July,
1884, p. 305.
V. Contemporary Reviews of
Other
Trollope
Works.
The
West
Indies
and the
Spanish
Main:
Athenaeum, Nov. 5, 1859,
pp.
642-644;
Atlantic
Monthly,
March,
I860,
pp. 375-378;
National
Review;, Jan,.
I860,
p. 257.
XIV
North
America:
Athenaeum, May 24, 1862,p. '685;Blackwood 'a,
Sept.,
1862, pp.372-390;
Dublin
University
Magazine,
July,
1862, p. 75;
grazer's
Magazine, Aug., 1862, pp.
250-264;
National
Review,
July,
1862, p. 201; Westmin-
ster
Review, Oct., 1862, pp. 536-537.
Tales
of
All
Countries:
Second
Series:
National
Review,
April,
1863, p. 522. ~* '
Hunting
Sketches:
Fortnightly
Review, Aug. I, 1865, p. 764;
Westminster
Review, Oct., 1865, p. 524.
Clergymen
of the
Church
of
England:
Contemporary Review,
1866, pp. 240-262.
Lotta
Schmidt:.And
Other
Stories:
AthenaeumN
Nov. 23, 1867,
p.
723;
Nation,
Dec. 19, 1867, p. 503;
Westminster
RE-
Oct.,
1867, p. 598.
An
Editor's Tales:
Athenaeum,
July
23, 1870, p. 112; Con-
temporary
Review,
Sept.,
1870, p. 319;
Westminster
Rg-
view,
Oct., 1870, pp. 523-525.
The Commentaries of
Caesar:
Contemporary Review,
Sept.,
1870,
P- 314.
Australia
and New
Zealand:
Athenaeum, March I, 1873, p. 276;
Fortnightly
Review, May, 1873, p. 662;
South
Africa:
Athenaeum, Feb. 16, 1878, p. 211.
Thackeray:
Athenaeum, June 14, 1879, pp. 749-750;
Atlantic
Monthly,
Aug., 1879, pp. 267-268;
Nation,
Aug. 21, 1879,
pp.
126-127;
Westminster
Review,
July,
1879, p. 258.
The
Life
of
Cicero:
Athenaeum, Aug. 6, 1881, pp. 170-171;
Atlantic
Monthly,
Nov. 1882, pp. 699-670; Blackwood's,
Feb.,
1881, pp. 212-228;
Nation,
July
28, 1881, pp. 75-76;
Frau
Frohmann: And
Other
Stories:
Athenaeum, Jan. 14, 1882,
p.
54.
Lord
Palmerston:
Athenaeum,
Sept.
16, 1882, p. 367; Westmin-
ster
Review, ©ct., 1882, p. 566.
An
Autobiography:
Athenaeum, Oct. 13, 1883, pp. 457-459; At-
lantic
Monthly,
Feb., 1884, pp. 267-271; Blackwood's, Nov.,
1883, PP-
577-596;
Edinburgh
Review, Jan., 1884, pp. 186-
203;
Good Words, vol 25, 1884, pp. 248-252;
Harper's,
Jan.,
1884, p. 317;
Macmillan's
Magazine, Nov., 1883, pp.
47-56;
Nation,
Nov. 5, 1883, pp. 396-397.
