Anthony Trollope

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (1871) is Trollope’s most comfortless novel, and also the one with the most alliterative title (almost impossible to pronounce reliably after half a glass of sherry). Following the tragic death of his son and heir, Sir Harry Hotspur is forced to rewrite his will. The glorious title must go to his cousin, a useless article called George Hotspur, but Sir Henry is determined that he shouldn’t also get his wealth. He bequeaths all his property to daughter Emily, hoping that she will marry a decent chap prepared to take his wife’s name. Alas, Emily is a feisty minx who refuses to marry the chinless wonder her parents have chosen, instead falling in love with the feckless George. ...

Sheep-farming in the Australian outback might seem like an odd topic for Trollope, an author known best for his forensic analysis of English society. In fact, he spent some time there after his son Fred became a “squatter”. Squatters were settlers who appropriated huge swathes of uncultivated bushland, initially illegally, and later under license from the Crown. Those who possessed the necessary tenacity and acumen could amass immense wealth, enabling them to build flashy houses and emulate the landowning classes of the motherland. Unfortunately, Fred Trollope seems to have suffered a want of pluck and application, and ended up losing thousands of his father’s hard-earned pounds. ...

Trollope intended The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson (1870) as “a hit at the present system of advertising”. Unfortunately, his unappreciative audience thought it a flop, with one critic dismissing it as “Thackeray-and-water”. As is often the case, I find myself almost alone in thinking it one of the author’s triumphs. The story charts the rise and fall of a haberdashery business run by the eponymous characters. Brown is pathologically cautious, a situation that repeatedly brings him into conflict with his extravagant and acquisitive partners. To complicate matters further, Robinson determines to win the hand of Brown’s youngest daughter, thereby pitching himself into competition with Brisket the butcher, who is as beefy as his name suggests. Meanwhile, the ambitious Jones seeks to corner the market in stockings and quash Robinson’s more exotic plan to stock monkey muffs (I shall resist the temptation to speculate on that item). ...

It’s hard to read The Landleaguers (1883) without a lump in the throat, as it was to be Trollope’s final novel. My sentimentality quickly vaporised, however, as it’s not one of his finer moments. The eponymous Landleaguers were Irish farmers who resisted eviction and strove to control their own land. Their tactics ranged from withholding rents and labour, through to death threats and flooding of fields. Famously, they also practised ostracism, which became known as Boycotting, after the name of its first victim. As an inveterate conservative (with a small c), and a tendency to be Tebbity, Trollope is highly critical of the Landleaguers’ actions, with the plot subordinate to the expression of his reactionary views. ...

My reading resolution for 2011 is to finish reading all of Trollope’s 47 novels. The short stories and non-fiction will have to wait ’til next year. Here’s the current tally: Can You Forgive Her? Phineas Finn The Eustace Diamonds Phineas Redux He Knew He Was Right The Way We Live Now Lady Anna Is He Popenjoy? Rachel Ray Linda Tressel Cousin Henry The Vicar of Bullhampton Kept in the Dark Miss Mackenzie The Belton Estate The Claverings The American Senator John Caldigate The Prime Minister The Duke’s Children Ayala’s Angel The Fixed Period Dr Wortle’s School An Old Man’s Love The Warden Barchester Towers Doctor Thorne An Eye for an Eye Framley Parsonage The Small House at Allington The Last Chronicle of Barset Marion Fay Mr Scarborough’s Family Nina Balatka Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite Harry Heathcote of Gangoil The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson The Golden Lion of Granpère The Macdermots of Ballycloran Ralph the Heir The Three Clerks Orley Farm The Bertrams La Vendée The Kelly’s and the O’Kellys (nearly there!) Castle Richmond (one to go!) The Landleaguers (done it!) 🎉 You can discover my favourites and those I’d happily never read again. ...

Most people don’t like change, and Trollope readers really hate it. Nina Balatka (1867) was an attempt to try something different, and Trollope published it anonymously in order to mark the departure from his familiar style. Reviewers quickly saw through his disguise, and the reading public were unimpressed. The original serialisation in Blackwood’s Magazine flopped, and the three-decker sold fewer than 500 copies. Consequently, the novel is one of Trollope’s least-known works. A terrible shame, say I, as Nina Balatka is one of his finest short novels. ...

Imagine, if you will, settling down to watch what promises to be a really good film, and then suddenly and inexplicably, it is interrupted by a party political broadcast from the Tory party. That’s how I felt about Mr Scarborough’s Family (1883), Trollope’s 45th and antepenultimate novel. The story begins well, with a King Lear moment in which the eponymous Mr Scarborough tries to decide which of his unworthy sons should inherit his considerable wealth. What follows is endless depictions of nasty, selfish people, with whom one is inclined to feel little sympathy. ...

I can’t help but suspect that Marion Fay (1882) is a literary bubble and squeak. Trollope seems to have taken some leftover plots and put them together, seasoning them with a dash of sensation. He did have a habit of popping half-written manuscripts in a drawer, secure in the knowledge that they could in future bring him some much-needed income. The novel was published not long before he died, so perhaps we can forgive him for going slightly off the boil. ...

WARNING: this review is positively teeming with plot spoilers. Drat my impatience. I was trying to save The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) for a forthcoming holiday, but the temptation was too great. As the title suggests, the novel is the final chronicle in Trollope’s tales of Barsetshire, so there is a certain poignancy that such memorable characters have now been put to rest. For many devotees, this novel is their favourite in the Trollopian Canon, and it’s easy to see why. The formidable cast from the previous chronicles is assembled and it’s like meeting old friends and finding out what they’ve been doing since you last saw them. As the reader is already familiar with the trials and tribulations of Barsetshire folk, there aren’t endless new names to remember and opinions to be formed (opinion-forming it deceptively fatiguing). Although there are sensational elements, Trollope delivers them in a languid fashion, relying on gradual enlightenment, rather than narrative shocks. Nathaniel Hawthorne, I think, encapsulated the essence of Trollope when he wrote that his writing is “as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were being made a show of.” ...

The Small House at Allington (1864) is the penultimate Chronicle of Barsetshire, although, as I shall discuss, it blends in with the others like an orange in a coal heap. The eponymous house is home to lively widow Mrs Dale and her two daughters, Lily and Bell. With only a tiny income to their name, they essentially live on the charity of Squire Dale, uncle to the girls, and occupier of the significantly larger house at Allington. The childless Squire is keen that his wealth should remain within the family and strongly urges Bell to marry her plodding and unexciting cousin Bernard. After declaring herself incapable of feeling anything beyond sisterly affection for him, the Squire asserts that young women ought to marry in accordance with familial interest, rather than their own foolish fancy. Given her financially dependent status, Bell is forced to mount a spirited defence in the face of her uncle’s grim determination. ...