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TROLLOPE, ANTHONY (181 1882)
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See also:TROLLOPE, See also:ANTHONY (181 1882) , See also:English novelist, was See also:born in See also:London, on the 24th of See also:April 1815. His See also:father, See also: He puts down his own misfortunes, at See also:Harrow, at Winchester, at Harrow again, and elsewhere, to his father's pecuniary circumstances, which made his own See also:appearance .dirty and shabby, and subjected him to various humiliations. But it is permissible to suspect that this was not quite the truth, and that some peculiarities of See also:temper, of which in after life he had many, contributed to his unpopularity. At any See also:rate he seems to have reached the See also:verge of manhood as ignorant as if he had had no See also:education at all. After an experience as See also:usher in a private school at See also:Brussels he obtained, at the See also:age of nineteen, by favour (for he could not pass even the ridiculous examination then usual) a position in the London See also:post See also:office. Even then his troubles 'were not over. He got into See also:debt; he got into ridiculous entanglements of love affairs, which he has very candidly avowed ; he was in See also:constant hot See also:water with the authorities; and he seems to have kept some very queer See also:company, which See also:long afterwards stood him in See also:good See also:stead as See also:models for some of his novels. At last in See also:August 1841 he obtained the See also:appointment of clerk to one of the post office surveyors in a remote See also:part of See also:Ireland with a very small See also:salary. This, however, was practically quadrupled by allowances; living was cheap; and the life suited Trollope exactly, being not office work, which he always hated, but a See also:kind of travelling inspectorship. In the See also:discharge of his duties he evinced a business capacity quite unsuspected by his former superiors. Here he began that See also:habit of See also:hunting which, after a manner hardly possible in later conditions of See also:official work, he kept up for many years even in England. Within three years of his appointment he became engaged to See also:Rose Heseltine, whom he had met in Ireland but who was of English See also:birth. They were married in See also:June 1844. His headquarters had previously been at Banagher; he was now transferred to See also:Clonmel. Trollope had always dreamt of novel-See also:writing, and his Irishexperiences seemed to See also:supply him with promising subjects. With some assistance from his mother he got published his first two books, The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847) and The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848). Neither was in the least a success, though the second perhaps deserved to be, and a third, La See also:Vendee (1850), besides being a much worse book than either, was equally a failure. Trollope made various literary attempts, but for a See also:time See also:ill See also:fortune attended all of them. Meanwhile he was set on a new kind of post office work, which suited him even better than his former employment—a sort of roving See also:commission to inspect rural deliveries and devise their See also:extension, first in Ireland, then throughout the See also:west of England and See also:South See also:Wales. That he did good work is undeniable; but his curious conception of official See also:duty, on his discharge of which he prided himself immensely, is exhibited by his confessions that he "got his hunting out of it," and that he See also:felt " the See also:necessity of travelling See also:miles enough "—he was paid by the mileage—" to keep his horses." It was during this work that he struck the vein which gave him fortune and fame. A visit to See also:Salisbury See also:Close inspired him with the See also:idea of The See also:Warden (1855). It brought him little immediate profit, nor was even Barchester Towers, which followed in 1857, very profitable, though it contains his freshest, his most See also:original, and, with the exception of The Last See also:Chronicle of Barset, his best work. The two made him a reputation, however, and in 1858 he was able for the first time to sell a novel, The Three Clerks, for a substantial sum, f25o. A See also:journey on post office business to the West Indies gave him material for a book of travel, The West Indies and the See also:Spanish See also:Main (1859), which he frankly and quite truly acknowledges to be much better than some subsequent work of his in the same See also:line. From this time his See also:production, mainly of novels, was incessant, and the sums which he received were very large, amounting in one See also:case to as much as X352 5 for a single book, and to nearly £70,000 in the twenty years between 1859 and 1879. All these particulars are given with See also:great minuteness by himself, and are characteristic. The full high See also:tide of his fortunes began when the Cornhill See also:Magazine was established. He was asked at See also:short See also:notice to contribute a novel, and wrote in 1861 Framley Parsonage, which was extremely popular; two novels immediately preceding it, The Bertrams (1859) and See also:Castle See also:Richmond (186o) had been much less successful.
As it will be possible to notice few of his other works, the See also:list of them, a sufficiently astonishing one, may be given here: See also:Doctor See also:Thorne (1858); Tales of All Countries (3rd See also:series 1863); See also:Orley See also:Farm; See also:North See also:America (1862); Rachael See also:Ray (1863); The Small See also:House at Allington, Can You Forgive Her? (1864); See also:Miss See also:Mackenzie (1865); The Belton See also:Estate (1866); The Claverings, Nina Balatka, The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867); Linda Tressel (1868); Phineas Finn, He Knew He Was Right (1869); The Struggles of See also: He took an active part in the See also:establishment of the Fortnightly See also:Review in 1865; he was editor of St See also:Paul's for some time after 1867; and at the end of that See also:year he resigned his position in the post office. He stood as a See also:parliamentary See also:candidate for See also:Beverley and was defeated; he received from his old See also:department See also:special See also:missions to America and elsewhere—he had already gone to America during the See also:Civil See also:War. He went to Australia in 1871, and before going See also:broke up his See also:household at Waltham. When he returned he established himself in London, and lived there until 188o, when he removed to Harting, on the confines of See also:Sussex and See also:Hampshire. He had visited South Africa in 1877 and travelled elsewhere. He died of See also:paralysis on the 6th of See also:December 1882. Of Trollope's See also:personal See also:character it is not necessary to say much. See also:Strange as his conception of official duty may seem, it was evidently quite honest and sincere, and, though he is said to have been as an official popular neither with superiors nor inferiors, he no doubt did much good work. Privately he was much liked and much disliked—a great deal of real kindness being accompanied by a blustering and overbearing manner, and an egotism, not perhaps more deep than other men's, but more vociferous. None of his literary work except the novels is remarkable for merit. His Caesar and Cicero are curious examples of a man's undertaking work for which he was not in the least fitted. Thackeray exhibits, though Trollope appears to have both admired Thackeray as an artist and liked him as a man, See also:grave faults of See also:taste and See also:judgment, and a See also:complete lack of real See also:criticism. The books of travel are not good, and of a kind not good. Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel—stories dealing with See also:Prague and See also:Nuremberg respectively—were published anonymously and as experiments in the romantic See also:style. They have been better thought of by the author and by some competent See also:judges than by the public or the publishers. The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson was still more disliked, and is certainly very See also:bad as a whole, but has touches of curious originality in parts. Trollope seldom creates a character of the first merit; at the same time his characters are always alive. Dr Thorne, Mr See also:Harding, who has the courage to resign his See also:sinecure in The Warden, Mr Crawley, See also:Archdeacon See also:Grantley, and Mrs Proudie in the same ecclesiastical series, are distinct additions to the personae of English fiction. After his first failures he never produced any-thing that was not a faithful and sometimes a very amusing transcript of the sayings and doings of possible men and See also:women. His characters are never See also:marionettes, much less sticks. He has some irritating mannerisms, notably a See also:trick of repetition of the same See also:form of words. He is sometimes absolutely vulgar—that is to say, he does not deal with See also:low life, but shows, though always robust and pure in morality, a certain coarseness of taste. He is constantly rather trivial, and perhaps nowhere out of the Barset series (which, however, is of itself no in-considerable work) has he produced books that will live. The very faithfulness of his See also:representation of a certain phase of thought, of cultivation, of society, uninformed as it is by any higher spirit, in the long run damaged, as it had first helped, the popularity of his work. But, allowing for all this it may and must still be said that he held up his See also:mirror steadily to nature, and that the mirror itself was fashioned with no inconsiderable See also:art.
Trollope wrote an Autobiography, edited by his son Henry M. Trollope in 1883, explaining his literary methods with amusing frankness. See also Sir L. See also:Stephen's Studies of a Biographer (1898), See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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