Trollope, Anthony

Trollope, Anthony trŏlˈəp [key], 1815–82, one of the great English novelists. After spending seven unhappy years in London as a clerk in the general post office, he transferred (1841) to Ireland and became post-office inspector; he held various positions in the postal service until his resignation in 1867. He published several unsuccessful novels before he achieved fame with The Warden (1855), the first in the series of Barsetshire novels. Others in the series are Barchester Towers (1857), Doctor Thorne (1858), Framley Parsonage (1861), The Small House at Allington (1864), and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867). In his later fiction, most of them the so-called Palliser novels, Trollope shifted his interest from the rural scene to urban society and politics. These books include The Claverings (1867), Phineas Finn (1869), He Knew He Was Right (1869), The Eustace Diamonds (1873), The Way We Live Now (1875), The Prime Minister (1876), and The American Senator (1877). His extensive journeys, many in the service of the post office, resulted in travel books, including an account of his visit to the United States. He was an industrious and prolific author, and besides his 47 novels, numerous volumes of stories, and many travel books, he wrote various works of reportage, several biographies, and a highly praised autobiography (1883). According to Henry James, Trollope's greatness lies in his “complete appreciation of the usual.” The Barsetshire novels, upon which his fame rests, depict in detail the lives of a group of ordinary but interesting people who live in that fictional English county. The series as a whole presents a fascinating microcosm of Victorian society.

Trollope's mother, Frances Milton “Fanny” Trollope, 1780–1863, was also a writer. Her acerbic account of her travels in the United States, The Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), was offensive to Americans but was a best seller in England and began her career as a successful writer. She continued to write travel books and started a steady stream of novels, of which the best are The Vicar of Wrexhill (1837) and The Widow Barnaby and its sequels (1839–56).

See his autobiography ed. by M. Sadleir (1883, repr. 1968); biographies of him by M. Sadleir (1927, new ed. 1961) and H. Walpole (1928); studies by A. O. J. Cockshut (1955), D. Smalley (1969), A. G. Freedman (1971), J. Pope-Hennessy (1971), W. M. Kendrick (1980), R. H. Super (1988), S. Wall (1989), and N. J. Hall (1992); L. P. and R. P. Stebbins, The Trollopes (1945, repr. 1968); biography of Frances Trollope by P. Neville-Sington (1998).

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