Novelist, born in London, UK. He joined the Post Office in 1834, working as a clerk, and introduced the pillar-box for posting letters before his retirement in 1867. In 1841 he became postal surveyor in Ireland, where he began to write. His first novel in the Barsetshire series, The Warden, appeared in 1855, and was followed by such successful books as Barchester Towers (1857), Framley Parsonage (1861), and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867). A political series followed, known as the Palliser novels (after the central character), including Phineas Finn (1869) and The Eustace Diamonds (1873). Among his later novels were The Way We Live Now (1875) and Mr Scarborough's Family (1883). His revealing autobiography, written in 18756, was published in 1883.
Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire, but he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day.Trollope has always remained a popular novelist (famous fans have included Sir Alec Guinness [who never travelled without a Trollope novel], former British Prime Minister Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, and American mystery novelist Sue Grafton);
Biography
Anthony Trollope's father, Thomas Anthony Trollope, worked as a barrister. They ranked as two of the most élite schools in England, but Trollope had no money and no friends, and got bullied a great deal.
In 1827 Frances Trollope moved to America with Trollope's three younger siblings, where she opened a bazaar in Cincinnati, which proved unsuccessful. Thomas Trollope joined them for a short time before returning to the farm at Harrow, but Anthony stayed in England throughout.
Time in Ireland
Trollope lived in boarding houses and remained socially awkward; Despite the calamity of the famine in Ireland, Trollope wrote of his time in Ireland in his autobiography:
"it was altogether a very jolly life that I led in Ireland.His professional role as a post-office surveyor brought him into contact with Irish people
Trollope began writing on the numerous long train trips around Ireland he had to take to carry out his postal duties.
Return to England
By the mid-1860s, Trollope had reached a fairly senior position within the Post Office hierarchy.
His first major success came with The Warden (1855) — the first of six novels set in the fictional county of "Barsetshire" (often collectively referred to as the Chronicles of Barsetshire), usually dealing with the clergy. Trollope's other major series, the Palliser novels, concerned itself with politics, with the wealthy, industrious Plantagenet Palliser and his delightfully spontaneous, even richer wife Lady Glencora usually featuring prominently (although, as with the Barsetshire series, many other well-developed characters populate each novel).
Trollope's popularity and critical success diminished in his later years, but he continued to write prolifically, and some of his later novels have acquired a good reputation. In all, Trollope wrote approximately four-dozen novels, as well as dozens of short stories and a few books on travel.
Anthony Trollope died in London in 1882. Snow wrote a biography of Trollope, published in 1975, called Trollope: His Life and Art.
Reputation
After his death, Trollope's Autobiography appeared. (Interestingly, no-one has decried Gustave Flaubert for diligence, though he too worked on a schedule-scheme similar to Trollope's.) Furthermore, Trollope admitted that he wrote for money;
Henry James expressed mixed opinions of Trollope. The young James wrote some scathing reviews of Trollope's novels (The Belton Estate, for instance, he called "a stupid book, without a single thought or idea in it ... Trollope's cheerful interpolations into his novels to the extent that his storylines could take any twist their author wanted did not appeal to James' sense of artistic integrity. However, James thoroughly appreciated Trollope's attention to realistic detail, as he wrote in an essay shortly after the novelist's death:
"His [Trollope's] great, his incontestable merit, was a complete appreciation of the usual...he felt all daily and immediate things as well as saw them; felt them in a simple, direct, salubrious way, with their sadness, their gladness, their charm, their comicality, all their obvious and measurable meanings...Trollope will remain one of the most trustworthy, though not one of the most eloquent of writers who have helped the heart of man to know itself...A race is fortunate when it has a good deal of the sort of imagination — of imaginative feeling — that had fallen to the share of Anthony Trollope;
James disliked Trollope's breaking the fourth wall in addressing readers directly.
Writers such as Thackeray, Eliot and Collins admired and befriended Trollope, and George Eliot noted that she could not have embarked on so ambitious a project as Middlemarch without the precedent set by Trollope in his own novels of the fictional — yet thoroughly alive — county of Barsetshire.
As trends in the world of the novel moved increasingly towards subjectivity and artistic experimentation, Trollope's standing with critics continue to suffer. Some critics today have a particular interest in Trollope's portrayal of women — he caused remark even in his own day for his remarkable insight and sensitivity to the inner conflicts caused by the position of women in Victorian society. But the understanding that critics find largely in Trollope's portrayal of women, readers find in his portrayal of humanity in general.
Trollope's works on television
The British Broadcasting Corporation has made several television-drama serials based on the works of Anthony Trollope:
The Pallisers, a twenty-six-episode adaptation of all six Palliser novels, first broadcast in 1974. The Barchester Chronicles, a seven-episode adaptation of the first two Barset novels, The Warden and Barchester Towers. The Way We Live Now, a four-episode adaptation of the novel of the same name.In the United States, PBS has broadcast all four series: The Pallisers in its own right, and The Barchester Chronicles, The Way We Live Now, and He Knew He Was Right as part of Masterpiece Theatre.
Trollope's works on radio
The BBC commissioned a four-part radio adaptation of The Small House at Allington, the fifth novel of the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which it broadcast in 1993.
BBC Radio 4 broadcast a serialised radio adaptation of The Kellys and the O'Kellys, starring Derek Jacobi, between 21 November 1982 and 2 January 1983.
Radio 4 broadcast The Pallisers, a new twelve-part adaptation of the Palliser novels, from January to April 2004 in the weekend Classic Serial slot.
Works
Novels unless otherwise noted:
Chronicles of Barsetshire
| The Warden (1855) Barchester Towers (1857) Doctor Thorne (1858) | Framley Parsonage (1861) The Small House at Allington (1864) The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) |
Palliser novels
| Can You Forgive Her? (1864) Phineas Finn (1869) The Eustace Diamonds (1873) | Phineas Redux (1874) The Prime Minister (1876) The Duke's Children (1879) |
Other
| The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847) The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848) La Vendée (1850) The Three Clerks (1858) The West Indies and the Spanish Main (travel) (1859) The Bertrams (1859) Castle Richmond (1860) Tales of All Countries--1st Series (stories) (1861) Tales of All Countries--2nd Series (stories) (1863) Tales of All Countries--3rd Series (stories) (1870) Orley Farm (1862) North America (travel) (1862) Rachel Ray (1863) Miss Mackenzie (1865) Hunting Sketches (sketches) (1865) Travelling Sketches (sketches) (1866) Clergymen of the Church of England (sketches) (1866) The Belton Estate (1866) The Claverings (1867) Nina Balatka (1867) Linda Tressel (1868) He Knew He Was Right (1869) Did He Steal It? (play) (1869) The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson (1870) The Vicar of Bullhampton (1870) An Editor's Tales (stories) (1870) The Commentaries of Caesar (school textbook) (1870) Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (1871) Ralph the Heir (1871) | The Golden Lion of Granpère (1872) Australia and New Zealand (travel) (1873) Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (1874) Lady Anna (1874) The Way We Live Now (1875) The American Senator (1877) Is He Popenjoy? (1878) South Africa (travel) (1878) How the 'Mastiffs' Went to Iceland (travel) (1878) John Caldigate (1879) An Eye for an Eye (1879) Cousin Henry (1879) Thackeray (criticism) (1879) Life of Cicero (biography) (1880) Ayala's Angel (1881) Doctor Wortle's School (1881) Why Frau Frohmann Raised Her Prices and other Stories (stories) (1882) Lord Palmerston (biography) (1882) The Fixed Period (1882) Kept in the Dark (1882) Marion Fay (1882) Mr. Scarborough's Family (1883) An Autobiography (autobiography) (1883) The Landleaguers (unfinished novel) (1883) An Old Man's Love (1884) The Noble Jilt (play) (1923) London Tradesmen (sketches) (1927) The New Zealander (essay) (1972) |
Quotations
"Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money.
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