Anthony Trollope - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss. Anthony Trollope Biography of Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) post office official and prolific English novelist from the Victorian Era, penned The Barset Chronicles series. Anthony Trollope was born on 24 April, 1815 at 6 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, London, the fourth son of Thomas Anthony Trollope (1774-1835) and Frances (nï¿½e Milton) (1779-1863). His father, who suffered from bouts of depression, was an unsuccessful lawyer and farmer. The family's humiliating state of poverty formed a lasting impression on Trollope, who was a tall, lanky, poorly dressed unhappy lad amongst the aristocratic youth of the famous schools he attended. In 1827, while Trollope attended his father's old school, Winchester, his mother left for America to assist in the set up of an English goods bazaar in Cincinnati.

It was an architectural monstrosity and a total failure, pushing the Trollope family to the last stages of financial ruin. The family moved to Bruges, Belgium in 1834, where Frances supported the family with her writing which she was quite successful at. Her Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) was well received in England. Trollope's father Thomas died in Bruges in 1835. His older brother Henry and his younger sister Emily died in Bruges too the following year. Trollope started work as a clerk with the post office when he was nineteen years old and in 1841 went on to become the postal surveyor for Banagher, Ireland, which finally gave him some financial freedom and self-confidence and whereupon he picked up the sport of fox-hunting. This career of his was to provide much fodder for his future literary works, which he wrote in his spare time, such as The West Indies and the Spanish Main (1859). He travelled to Egypt, Scotland and the West Indies in 1858 and 1859 and the United States in 1861 on postal missions.

In 1859 Trollope moved to Waltham Cross, just outside of London, to be surveyor general to the Post Office for ï¿½800 a year. Trollope is credited with the introduction of "pillar boxes", the now ubiquitous red British postal mail boxes. In 1844 Trollope married Rose Heseltine and they had two sons, Henry (b.1846) and Frederick (b.1847). Trollope's study into Irish discontent, The MacDermots of Ballycloran (1847) was his first book, however, while in England he wrote The Warden (1855) the first of his famous Barchester Chronicles series, based on English upper middle-class Victorian life, which was his first acknowledged success.

Barchester Towers (1857), Doctor Thorne (1858), Framley Parsonage (1861), The Small House at Allington (1864), and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) completed the series, readers especially enjoying his intense study of everyday social life, ecclesiastical politics and character developments in the imaginary cathedral city (modeled on Winchester) and the surrounding county of Barchester (modeled on Somerset). Trollope had finally come into his mï¿½tier. He was successful and prosperous, much sought after by publishers and became friends with many literary figures including W. E. Forster and George Eliot . He was involved in some business dealings concerning various magazines and gazettes and even tried his hand at editorship for St. Paul's Magazine in 1867. Trollope's Palliser series: Can You Forgive Her?

(1864), Phineas Finn (1869), The Eustace Diamonds (1873), Phineas Redux (1876), The Prime Minister (1876) and The Duke's Children (1880) were well-received, and he also produced insightful novels on political and social issues of the day during this time. In 1867 Trollope resigned from the post office and unsuccessfully ran an election campaign as a Liberal parliamentary candidate. In 1871 to 1872 he gave up his Waltham house and traveled to visit his son in Australia, tirelessly writing along the way. In 1872 he moved back to London, following his strict regime of writing for many hours before breakfast, whether he was travelling to Ceylon and Australia in 1875, South Africa in 1877 or Iceland in 1878, or writing at home. He was also working on his Autobiography (1883) between October 1875 and April 1876 (published posthumously).

His diligent, business-like approach to writing, as was revealed in his Autobiography offended many and he fell out of favour with some of his admirers after his death. Trollope moved again in 1880 for want of better air, with hints of asthma and angina pectoris. He produced a few more novels the next year, one of them being The Plumber (1881). In May of 1882 he was staying at Garland's Hotel on Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, London. On the 3rd of November, 1883, whilst laughing during a family reading of F. Anstey's Vice Versa, he suffered a paralytic stroke. He died about a month later, on 6 December, 1883. He is buried in the Kensal Green Cemetery of London, England. Hawthorne once wrote of Trollope's work: "Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope?

They precisely suit my taste; solid, substantial, written on strength of beef and through inspiration of ale, and just 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 made a show of." Biography written by C.D. Merriman for Jalic Inc. Copyright Jalic Inc 2005. All Rights Reserved. The above biography is copyrighted. Do not republish it without permission. Forum Discussions on Anthony Trollope Recent Forum Posts on Anthony Trollope On Trollope's Barchester Series On Trollope's Barchester Series [ Victorian Web Home —> Authors —> Anthony Trollope —> Works ] or the past two-and-a-half months, I have been re-reading my way through all six volumes of Trollope's Barchester series. I bought these books — Oxford University Press, in very small print ! — in 1963, more than forty years ago, from "John B.

Wylie & Co., Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow," and, still tucked into volume one is a small business card, which says on the verso: "The only copy of 'The Small House at Allington' in stock is too shop-soiled to send you. A fresh copy will follow before even the fastest reader can get through the others!" That is the history of how I acquired this little set. Since then, I have read all six novels I don't know how many times and, each time, enjoy them more because, with every reading, some aspect becomes clearer, or I realise something which I had missed the previous time; or I gain more insight into the one or other of the characters; or, as happened this time, reading it all in a relatively short time, I got a better overview over the whole story, from volume one to volume six. Barchester is a cathedral town in imaginary Barsetshire of mid-nineteenth century England. Each of the six novels — beginning with The Warden, and continuing with Barchester Towers, Dr. Thorne, Framley Parsonage, The Small House at Allington, ending with The Last Chronicle of Barset — takes us to a different part of the county.

In each, we meet the local parsons and the parishioners, the wealthy and the poor, the titled and those without rank or fame, and in each reappear some of those whom we met before. In each, a heart-rending romance, a deserved or undeserved misfortune, a striking personality or downright politics, catches our interest and our sympathy, our contempt and even anger. And in the last novel, almost all of the important personages of the first five, are drawn together and allowed a final curtain call, and for almost all, in some way or other, the problems which so haunted them while their story was being told, are finally being solved, or, quite simply, their dreams come true. Yes, even Dr. Proudie, the henpecked bishop, finds unexpected relief. Trollope has a wonderfully easy and elegant style; he can be serious, he can be witty and, at times, he speaks with tongue-in-cheek; but he can also be tender, with amazing insight into the human psyche, whether male or female, old or young.

To an uninitiated reader, his lengthy descriptions may seem almost insurmountable but, on re-reading, it becomes clear that all those seemingly endless paragraphs are absolutely necessary in order to prepare the setting based on preceding history, to present the full picture of the person described and to understand what is going on in his or her mind in order to follow him, step by step, until a solution is reached. In Barchester Towers, he has the Signora Neroni come to the conclusion, that "the manhood of Barchester consisted mainly of parsons," and this is obviously also Trollope's view, indeed, he makes them his favourite characters. As a result, he has to defend himself, in the concluding chapter of the series, against the criticism that, in writing about clergymen, he had ignored their professional duties and their high calling, as though these were matters of no moment. In answer to this he explains that his purpose had been to paint the social and not the professional lives of clergymen; and that, as a novelist, he felt entitled to write of them out of, not in, their pulpits.

Trollope's Parsons His characterisation of individual parsons is superb; he paints them in such minute detail that we can almost see them before us and hear them speak. The most expanded upon and, therefore, also the most impressive character undoubtedly is that of the Rev. Josiah Crawley, perpetual curate of Hogglestock Parish, who takes centre stage in the last novel. It is said that Trollope based this character, in part, on his own father. Crawley is a first-class Greek and Latin scholar; a close college friend of Dean Arabin whom he far surpasses in scholarship but, unlike Francis Arabin, he is as poor as the proverbial church mouse; too proud to accept alms, and almost taking pleasure in his poverty; but — never losing his dignity even in the greatest adversity. Of no less importance is Archdeacon Theophilus Grantly, son of the late Bishop Grantly, and rector of Plumstead Episcopi, financially well off and a man of the world. The new Bishop, Dr. Proudie, is, by comparison, a minor figure, important only through his wife who is the real power behind the ecclesiastical throne. With the Proudies arrives Mr.

Obadiah Slope, the Bishop's evangelical chaplain and creator of widespread mischief. With his inaugural sermon in the cathedral, in which he expresses his "abomination of all ceremonious modes of utterance" in the services of the Church, particularly that of chanting the Liturgy, he creates a storm within the Cathedral Close and divides the diocese into high-church and low-church camps. Dean Trefoil is but a brief apparition. After Mr. Slope's incendiary sermon, the old man "betook himself silently to his deanery, afraid to speak; and there sat, half stupefied, pondering many things in vain." Not long after this, he suffers an attack of apoplexy and, having lingered in a coma for several days, he dies. Dr. Francis Arabin, a college friend of Archdeacon Grantly, is his successor. Dr. Vesey Stanhope, absentee Prebendary of Barchester Cathedral, who had been living in Italy for the past twelve years in order to cure a sore throat and collect butterflies, is summonsed home by the new bishop, or rather by Mr. Slope, and we now meet him and his family.

Trollope says of him : "As Dr. Stanhope was a clergyman, it may be supposed that his religious convictions made up a considerable part of his character; but this was not so." In Greshamsbury, which we visit in the third novel, lives the Rev. Caleb Oriel, a man of very High Church principles; single, very rich; a thorough gentleman, good-humoured, inoffensive and sociable, with but one fault — he was not a marrying man. So he believed. North of Barchester, we find the young, energetic but naïve Rev. Mark Robarts as Rector of Framley Parsonage. A friend of Lady Lufton and her son, Ludovic of Framley Court, he becomes embroiled in self-inflicted misfortune, when he, against his better judgement follows the invitation of the Duke of Omnium to Gatherum Castle, which almost results in his total ruin. And, at Puddingdale, there is the Rev. Quiverful who, in all humility but material relief, accepts the Wardenship of Hiram's Hospital.

Among all these, lives quietly and unassuming, but outstanding in kindness and deep understanding of life and human nature, the Rev. Septimus Harding , up to now Warden of Hiram's Hospital for Bedesmen in Barchester; father of Susan, Archdeacon Grantly's wife, and Eleanor who, after early widowhood, marries Dean Arabin. Innumerable lay personages crowd the pages of the Barchester stories, and we meet a number of them, particularly "the quality," in Barchester Towers at the Fête Champêtre given by the Thornes of Ullathorne. The owners of Ullathorne, a large estate just to the south-east of Barchester, are Squire Wilfred Thorne, a bachelor still at fifty and "possessed of quite a sufficient number of foibles to lay him open to much ridicule," and his older sister who also lived on the estate. As Trollope says, she "participated in his prejudices and feelings so strongly, that she was a living caricature of all his foibles." Nonetheless, she was well educated and could converse on Addison, Swift and Steele, and recite poetry by Dryden and Spenser.

In the third novel, Dr. Thorne, we learn that, since the Reform Bill , Barsetshire is politically divided into two parliamentary constituencies — an eastern part, which is "more purely Conservative than the western" which, in turn is under the influence of two "such great Whig magnates as the Duke of Omnium and the Earl de Courcy". In East Barset live the Greshams of Greshamsbury, and Squire Frank Gresham is the Conservative Member of Parliament there. Unfortunately, he commits political suicide by marrying Lady Arabella, the daughter of Earl de Courcy. We never meet the Earl himself but we have much, not always pleasant opportunity to study his wife, his daughters and his two sons, the Hon. George and the Hon. John, throughout the novels. Then there is Dr. Thorne himself, guarding the secret of his niece Mary and, eventually, taking a most unexpected plunge into matrimony, giving up his practice and moving to the estate of Chaldicotes in West Barset. Very much part of Dr. Thorne's life, is Sir Roger Scatcherd of Boxall Hill.

The Baronet started out "whilom as a drunken stone-mason in Barchester" but, through hard and highly satisfactory work for the government, had earned himself a knighthood and acquired the estate of Boxall Hill, formerly part of Greshamsbury. Sir Roger was also very fond of "a drop of som'at hot" which, eventually, proved his undoing. Another, elderly, brother-sister couple live at Guestwick, namely the Earl De Guest and his sister, Lady Julia. Guestwick is "in another county," yet its people are very much part of Barchester history. This is the story of The Small House at Allington, the heartbreaking tale of Lily Dale's betrayal by Adolphus Crosbie, and of Johnny Eames' unrequieted love. The Earl is saved from an attack by an infuriated bull through none other than Johnny himself and, as a result, the two become good friends. In The Small House at Allington and in The Last Chronicle of Barset, we watch him as he grows from 'hobbledehoy' to a young hero, advancing to private secretary to Sir Raffle Buffle of the Income Tax Office.

But even Johnny Eames is not without a few questionable adventures. Lili Dale is the only one in Barset, for whom there is no "happy ending". In fact, when Crosbie breaks the engagement — and her heart — she writes in her diary: "Lili Dale, O.M.," that is "Old Maid," and an old maid she remained. I can't help wondering, though, whether she was influenced by the story of her uncle, Squire Christopher Dale, who lives in the Great House at Allington, of whom was said that, in his youth, "he had fallen in love with a lady who obstinately refused his hand, and, on her account, he had remained single". Trollope's Women Trollope by no means ignores the importance of women in his novels; on the contrary, they are painted with just as much care and devotion as are the men. Apart from Lily Dale, already mentioned was Mrs. Proudie, the Bishop's wife, and there are so many, well-described instances of her outrageous interference in the business of the Barchester See, that the reader is sorely tempted to echo the Rev. Crawley and say to her: "Peace, woman!" Mrs.

Grantly, the archdeacon's wife, is the personification of common sense and diplomacy in dealing with a husband. Then there is Lady Lufton at Framley Court; so unlike her aristocratic sisters in West Barset, she is realistic, gentle, understanding and always ready to help. Another, down-to-earth and straight-forward human being, but in a different sense, is Lady Scatcherd of Boxall Hill, who never quite got accustomed to her husband's elevation — she remains true to her own self, simple and unassuming. A brief but powerful appearance is that of the Signora Madelina Vesey Neroni, in whom, merely looking at the name, no reader would suspect Madeline Stanhope, Dr. Stanhope's daughter. Hers is an extraordinary story which, most certainly, has greatly influenced her equally extraordinary behaviour. She leaves a strong impression and, admittedly, a not altogether negative one. Martha Dunstable is the heiress of her father's almost unlimited "Oil of Lebanon" ointment riches; she is a strong personality, not given to unnecessary ceremonial, but is cheerful, wise and down-to-earth — a breath of fresh air.

And dear little Lady Julia de Guest who, after the Earl's death, still keeps her door open for Johnny Eames and, in a motherly way, lends her ear and her advice. And there are Mrs. Crawley and her daughter Grace in Hogglestock, sorely tried by abject poverty; the Misses Prettyman in Silverbridge and their schemes; Eleanor Harding, now Mrs. Arabin, in Barchester, and dear Mrs. Dale in Allington. Trollope's Names for Places and People Delightful are Trollope's choices of names for minor, but yet important characters, as well as for places, towns and castles in Barsetshire. The Reverend Quiverful is the father of fourteen children; Dr. Fillgrave is the top Barchester physician and Mr. Rerechild his competition, both on occasion supplanted by Sir Omicron Pie of London. Sir Raffle Buffle is Chairman of the Income Tax office in London. When parliamentary elections are held in Barsetshire, Mr. Nearthewinde is the "indefatigable agent" for the aspiring member for Barset East. And then, there is the Scotsman, Dr.

Pessimist Anticant , who produces monthly pamphlets on the Decay of the World. And Mr. Harding consults Sir Abraham Haphazard in London, famed lawyer, a man of wit who "sparkled among the brightest at the dinner-tables of political grandees". And at Ullathorne rules old Mr. Plomacy, the steward who, at the time of the French Revolution , had gone to France with letters for the royal family hidden in his bootlaces; and had returned safely. As for place names: I already mentioned that the Duke of Omnium lives at Gatherum Castle; while Archdeacon Grantly is at Plumstead Episcopi. And Trollope's Barchester map shows such quaint place names as the villages of Stogpingum, Eiderdown and Crabtree Canonicorum. The series begins with the Rev. Septimus Harding, Warden of Hiram's Hospital in Barchester, and the series — almost — ends with the Rev. Septimus Harding. With great tenderness and insight, Trollope describes the dying man's friendship with his little granddaughter, Posy, and the child's instinctive acceptance of her Grandpa's final farewell.

And so the old man goes to sleep, his death as quiet and unobtrusive as his life had been. After the funeral, the archdeacon says: I seem to have known him all my life. I have known him ever since I left college; and I have known him as one man seldom knows another. There is nothing he has done, — as I believe, nothing that he has thought, — with which I have not been cognizant. I feel sure that he never had an impure fancy in his mind, or a faulty wish in his heart. His tenderness has surpassed the tenderness of woman; and yet, when occasion came for showing it, he had all the spirit of a hero. I shall never forget his resignation of the hospital . . . The fact is, he never was wrong. He couldn't go wrong. He lacked guile, and he feared God, — and a man who does both will never go far astray. I don't think he ever coveted aught in his life, — except a new case for his violincello and somebody to listen to him when he played it. As I read the final pages, there were tears in my eyes.

Anthony Trollope (Author of Barchester Towers) edit data Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, b Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. Trollope has always been a popular novelist.

Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century. Anthony Trollope. New York Public Library Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers is the next selection for A Year of Great Books, a Slate Academy. To learn more, read Laura Miller’s introduction to the series , or visit Slate.com/GreatBooks . Laura Miller is a books and culture columnist for Slate and the author of The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia . Follow her on Twitter . Our friends at Audible have another gift for Slate Plus members: a complimentary audiobook of Barchester Towers. Tolstoy and Henry James loved his novels, but most of the many, many people who avidly read the work of Anthony Trollope today don’t owe their passion to a college professor or highbrow critic.

His novels are rarely assigned in courses, and officious parroters of conventional wisdom are forever remarking that he’s not up to the standard of other Victorian classics. Yet you can find thriving Trollope societies on both sides of the pond and die-hard fans in seemingly every walk of life. The reason for this is simple: the vast amount of sheer pleasure readers get from his novels. Barchester Towers , the second in a loosely connected series of novels called The Chronicles of Barsetshire, provides an astonishing quantity of delight for a book whose subject is the petty power struggles within the ecclesiastical circle in a fictional cathedral town. There’s a high-church faction, invested in the grand and traditional modes of worship and observance, and an invading low-church contingent that advocates greater reformist piety—like prohibiting travel on Sunday, the pet cause of the new bishop’s wife, Mrs. Proudie, and her insinuating chaplain Obadiah Slope, the novel’s villain. But, as most readers quickly realize, the actual bone of contention doesn’t matter much; it’s the contention itself—and above all how the various characters engage in it—that powers the novel.

Barchester Towers is, in essence, a workplace comedy. The Trollope of Barchester Towers is about as worldly as a novelist can get without tipping over into outright cynicism. (The Way We Live Now illustrates how he saw things at a later, less sanguine stage in his life.) Like Jane Austen, he understands human beings to be motivated by a balance of principle and self-interest and that too much of either is equally likely to lead to trouble. The preceding novel in the series, The Warden, describes the scandal surrounding the decent old gentleman Septimus Harding, whose position running a charitable retirement home becomes the subject of a reform campaign. * It’s impossible not to want Mr. Harding to keep his position as warden, but it’s equally impossible not to see that the people who want to take it away from him have a point. In Barchester Towers, Mr. Harding hopes to regain the wardenship, but Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope want to give it to a poor clergyman with 14 children, who obviously needs it more. We root for the low-church faction to fail because they’re self-serving and unkind while Mr. Harding is sweet.

And so Trollope enlists his readers in the tricky, ambiguous task of making moral sense of the scuffles of everyday life. Another of Mr. Slope’s projects entails the whipping-into-shape of those clergymen who are supported by church sinecures and “livings” but who don’t do any work. One of them, the Rev. Dr. Vesey Stanhope, is forced with his family to return to Barchester from Italy, where he has been collecting butterflies for the past 12 years. With him come his three adult children, including the inimitable Signora Neroni, a devastating flirt who, as a result of a riding accident, must be carried into rooms and arranged picturesquely on sofas. The Stanhope siblings are reprehensible people—irresponsible, flippant, lazy, and heartless, despite their amiable, obliging temperaments. But the reader’s heart lifts every time they appear on the page, because they’re witty, charming pot-stirrers who promise, deliciously, to vex the schemes of Proudie and Slope. Although never celebrated for the beauty of his prose, Trollope has no rival as a creator of characters.

“He seems not to have invented them but to have found himself in their company ,” wrote the critic John Bayley, adding that he “knows them as a wife was once said to know her husband, or a valet his master. He knows them from the inside out, from the weak, uncertain interior to the armored persona that has grown up for public use.” The only remedy for this particular species of disillusionment is fondness and humor, and no one can beat Trollope on that front. He always stops short of mere caricature, and key to the subtle bite of his famous irony is that, good or bad, his characters’ follies are often a discomfiting reflection of our own.

“Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others,” he observes in Barchester Towers, “and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.” This endlessly amused and ultimately forgiving attitude toward humanity and its flaws—the ways we fail to live up to our ideals and occasionally surprise ourselves and others with our goodness—lacks the visionary grandeur that some people demand of literature. (Trollope’s posthumously published autobiography, which included a matter-of-fact account of his daily work habits, also offended anyone who preferred to think of novels as mystical gifts of the muse.) For the better part of a century, his reputation among scholars and critics languished. But Trollope has always been read—devotedly, hungrily, lovingly—and it is all those readers, alone in their rooms with a book but also immersed in worlds as varied and familiar and perplexing as the one outside their doors, who have had the last and longest laugh.

*Correction, July 7, 2016: This article originally misspelled character Septimus Harding’s last name. ( Return. ) The Barchester Chronicles (TV Mini-Series 1982) - IMDb The Barchester Chronicles When a crusade against the Church of England's practice of self-enrichment misfires, scandal taints the cozy community of Barchester when their local church becomes the object of a scathing, investigative report. Stars: Famous Directors: From Sundance to Prominence From Christopher Nolan to Quentin Tarantino and every Coen brother in between, many of today's most popular directors got their start at the Sundance Film Festival . Here's a list of some of the biggest names to go from Sundance to Hollywood prominence.

a list of 25 titles created 11 Nov 2011 a list of 38 titles created 23 Mar 2012 a list of 25 titles created 29 Jul 2014 a list of 38 titles created 24 Aug 2014 a list of 47 titles created 17 Jan 2015 Title: The Barchester Chronicles (1982– ) 8.3/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 1 win & 7 nominations. See more awards » Photos The Forsyte Saga (TV Mini-Series 1967) Drama The extended Forsyte family live a more than pleasant upper middle class life in Victorian and later Edwardian England. The two central characters are Soames Forsyte and his cousin Jolyon ...

See full summary » Stars: Eric Porter, Margaret Tyzack, Nyree Dawn Porter Based on a little known 1848 novel by Anne Bronte, Tara Fitzgerald stars as an enigmatic young woman who moves to 19th Century Yorkshire with a young son. Distancing herself from everyone ... See full summary » Stars: Toby Stephens, Tara Fitzgerald, Rupert Graves At the center of the story is Augustus Melmotte, a European-born city financier, whose origins are as mysterious as his business dealings. Trollope describes him as 'something in the city',... See full summary » Stars: David Suchet, Matthew Macfadyen, Cillian Murphy A woman dealing with inconsolable grief over the death of her partner gets another chance when he returns to earth as a ghost. Director: Anthony Minghella A London publisher recounts a lunchtime reunion with a former lover, in poetic monologue. Director: Niall MacCormick The trials of the British aristocratic Bellamy family and their household staff. Stars: Gordon Jackson, David Langton, Jean Marsh The Pallisers (TV Mini-Series 1974) Drama | Romance Follows the novels of Anthony Trollope.

Beginning with the forced Marriage of Susan Hampshire's character, Glencora, the lives of the friends and children of this couple are the subject of ... See full summary » Stars: Susan Hampshire, Philip Latham, Barbara Murray Louis Trevelyan's refusal to trust his wife, Emily, destroys their marriage. Stars: Oliver Dimsdale, Christina Cole, Laura Fraser An array of glacially paced performances of theater artists and actors of all genres and nationalities both well-known and under-recognized. Directors: David Michalek, Paul Warner Stars: William H. Macy, Holly Hunter, Liev Schreiber In 1783, Ross Poldark returns from the American wars to his native Cornwall to right wrongs and reunite with the love of his life. Stars: Robin Ellis, Angharad Rees, Clive Francis In an drab police state, a children's book writer is interrogated by a sadistic secret policeman under suspicion of embedding anti-government messages in her stories.

Director: Radha Bharadwaj Thérèse Raquin (TV Mini-Series 1980) Drama Edit Storyline The Barchester Chronicles, a BBC miniseries, is adapted from two mid-19th century novels by Anthony Trollope. When a crusade against the Church of England's practice of self-enrichment misfires, scandal taints the cozy community of Barchester when their local church becomes the object of a scathing report about the use of church funds. Consequently, an honorable middle-aged clergyman (Donald Pleasence) is forced into moral crisis and a conflict with his son-in-law, a pompous archdeacon (Nigel Hawthorne) and his youngest daughter's beloved (David Gwillim). The arrival of a new bishop (Clive Swift), his domineering wife (Geraldine McEwan), and a devious chaplain (Alan Rickman) - who may be hiding secrets - add to the dramatic scheming and complex power struggles among a colorful cast of characters.

Written by Lulupalooza Barchester Pilgrimage - The Trollope Society USA Barchester Pilgrimage $15.00 A playful look by Ronald Knox at many of the characters from the Barchester series following them through 1934. Out of stock by Ronald A. Knox, originally published in 1935. 278 Pages. Hardback. Published by Omnium Publishing, the publishing arm of The Trollope Society. ISBN 9781870587884. Here is the first ever reprint of a rare work of great charm. Published in 1935, Ronald Knox offers the reader a new generation of Barchester stories in the manner of Trollope, sketching the further adventures of the Bolds and Grantlys and the Arabins – and those of their children. Knox continues the history of Barchester for two generations after Trollope ended his own books, taking the surviving characters and their descendants to 1934 Barchester Pilgrimage is a delightful pastiche even for readers who are not familiar with Anthony Trollope’s most endearing series about an imaginary Cathedral city, Barchester.

Knox’s humorous introduction to the book sets the tone: EXPLANATORY DEDICATION TO MAURICE BARING Dear Maurice, I owe you a deep debt of ingratitude for pointing out to me, when this book was nearly three parts written, that practically nobody would read it, because practically nobody had ever heard of Barchester. Do you really suggest that we have got to tell people what the title means? To say that there was a man called Anthony Trollope, who was born in the year of Waterloo, and died in 1882 – died of laughing at a new book called Vice Versa? That this man, however much you rank him below the Immortals, is the novelist of the Victorian era, because most of all he was its unconscious spokesman; and that among the great library of his writings, five novels are endeared beyond all others to those who read them, the five which centre round the imaginary Cathedral city of Barchester?

Will it be any use to tell them all this, and give them a few more stray pieces of information such as would help them in a General Paper – as, that Mrs .Proudie, the Bishop’s wife, hen-pecked him and tried to run the diocese for him; or that Mr.Harding, the precentor, was the gentlest and most lovable of characters in fiction, or that Dr.Grantley, the Archdeacon, was a fine, domineering clergyman of the old school? Would such information help one who has never had the entrée of Courcey Castle, or strolled with the Archdeacon across Barchester Close, or faced up to the anger of Lady Lufton in her “den” at Framley Park; or blushed and wept over the poverty of Hogglestock Parsonage? However, I dare say you are right in thinking that some kind of explanation is needed. To publish a book written entirely in the style of somebody else, when your reader is not expecting it, is to put yourself in the position of one who meets callers at the front door when he is dressed up in an eiderdown and an old cavalry helmet to amuse the children.

To be an ass in a lion’s skin is dangerous work at the best of times; but you look even more of an ass if you are meeting people who have never heard of the lion. So I have done what you suggested, and explained it all in words of one syllable; only insisting that my explanation should take this dedicatory form. My readers may be few enough; but it will be something to have told my non-readers – the people who will put down the book in disgust at this point – that you think as poorly of them as I do, for taking so little interest in Trollope. About Ronald A. Knox Ronald Knox was a scholar, priest, confessor, orator, and prolific writer of both fiction and nonfiction, including detective novels, histories, satires, and aplogetics. He was a radio personality in the 1950s. After his death, Evelyn Waugh wrote Knox’s biography, The Life of the Right Reverend Ronald Knox.

The Trollope Society c/o Midge Fitzgerald | 6 Pier Pointe, New Bern, NC 28562 | 212-683-4023 | Contact Us Barchester Towers - Wikisource, the free online library Barchester Towers Barchester Towers (1857) is the second novel in Trollope's six-part Chronicles of Barsetshire series. 252147Barchester TowersAnthony Trollope1906 "'Shall I begin, ma'am?' said Harry" Copyright, 1902, by Published November, 1902. PUBLISHERS' NOTE Among minor English novelists Anthony Trollope occupies the foremost place. In fact, there are few of the greatest who excel him in originality and delicacy of humor and the faithful portrayal of character. His work lacks very little of being that of genius. He was born in 1815; spent the greater part of his life in the postal service, as inspector in Ireland, England, and abroad; and died in 1882.

In 1862 he visited the United States, and on his return published an account of his travels which was of considerable service in correcting English opinions on American affairs. "Barchester Towers," perhaps the best, certainly the most delightful, of his novels, was published in 1857. Its scene is the cathedral town of "Barchester" (suggested by Salisbury), about which cluster a number of his most fascinating tales. The life of this imaginary town—the doings of its ecclesiastical dignitaries and of their neighbors—Trollope reveals with the exactness of a local historian and with inimitable humor. "I had formed for myself," he says, "so complete a picture of the locality, had acquired so accurate a knowledge of the cathedral town and the county in which I had placed the scene, and had become by a long-continued mental dwelling in it so intimate with sundry of its inhabitants, that to go back to it and write about it again and again has become one of the delights of my life." To peruse what he wrote is certainly one of the delights of the reader of English fiction. As pictures of contemporary life Trollope's works are unsurpassed.

They may, as has been truly said, "fall into temporary oblivion, but when the twentieth century desires to estimate the nineteenth, they will be disinterred and studied with an attention accorded to no contemporary work of the kind, except, perhaps, George Eliot's 'Middlemarch.' " CONTENTS Sadly, the snobs were right about Trollope - Telegraph Simon Heffer Sadly, the snobs were right about Trollope Trollope had much in common with Dickens - except that Dickens did everything so much better, argues Simon Heffer. Perspiration, not inspiration: Trollope's formula worked because he never overestimated the intelligence of his readership Photo: ALAMY By Simon Heffer 7:00PM GMT 01 Jan 2011 I embark upon this particular column with great trepidation, because I know how much some will be upset by it: for the purpose of this Sunday outing is not to cause upset but to explore cultural byways. One such byway I have been putting off exploring is the one called Anthony Trollope. However, I am afraid the time has come. When I was reading English at university 30 years ago, Trollope was simply not considered serious.

This did not necessarily count against him. Cambridge in the late 1970s and early 1980s had some funny ideas about literature. To some writers it should have been a badge of honour to be denigrated, marginalised and reviled by the panjandrums of the English faculty. I recall the contempt in which Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy and H G Wells were held – for no better reason, it seemed, than that they had not been Virginia Woolf or D H Lawrence. Woolf’s neurotic snobbery and Lawrence’s overwritten exhibitions of his own perversions soon started to seem infinitely less appealing, and interesting, than the sharp observations, imagination and wit of their unfashionable contemporaries. I recall one preposterous Leftist lecturer telling us earnestly that one of the most important novelists of the Victorian age was not Trollope himself but his mother, Fanny. This was because Mrs Trollope had “written about working-class people in an unsentimentalised sort of way”. I am afraid I have yet to verify that.

It was because of the academic disregard accorded to her son and his works that I felt, about 20 years ago, that I ought to read some of his works. Inevitably, I started with the first two Barchester novels, The Warden and Barchester Towers. I recall being struck by three things. First, the characterisation was amusing, and was rather what kept the reader’s interest. This was because, second, the plot was derivative, especially once one was on the second novel. One was seldom surprised by what happened, but one was amused by some turns of phrase of the characters as they coped with the predictable. Third, the writing itself was not especially good. Trollope has in his favour that he generally avoids the interminable sentences, with sub-clause upon sub-clause, that so disfigure the writers of the generation before him. However, he has a loose grasp of grammar and, over the long stretch, something of a limited vocabulary. The same old similes and tropes inflict themselves upon us again and again. One soon realises he is a fine writer in the way that clothes from Marks & Spencer are haute couture.

Being unable to do things by halves, I read all six of the Barchester novels. They became rather tired, although the fifth of them, The Small House at Allington, was good: I should say it is the most underrated of Trollope’s novels, in that it contains one of his more credible female creations, Lily Dale. However, having done that, I was minded to give the rest of Trollope (and he wrote more than 40 novels) a miss. Then somebody told me I would regret not reading the six political, or Palliser, novels. So, on a long trip to Australia two decades ago, I took all of them with me. One of the joys of the old Oxford World’s Classics series was that they were perfect to travel with, being small and indestructible hardbacks. The novels’ appeal was enhanced by my being far from home (I have often noticed this when reading second-rate books by English authors in foreign lands). I rather enjoyed The Eustace Diamonds; but the rest grated upon me as repetitive, devoid of imagination, and even, in time, predictable in their characterisation as well as in their plotting. They are only a cut or two above pulp fiction.

Mind you, pulp fiction is what one needs sometimes, and over the years I have put the odd obscure Trollope in my suitcase for a bit of mid-Victorian escapism on holiday or a long business trip, in the hope of finding a gem. I feared I would be disappointed, and so far I regret to say I have been. Everyone I know who has read it says that The Way We Live Now, with the monstrous creation of Melmotte, is not merely Trollope’s finest novel (which I think it probably is), but one of the best of the Victorian period (which casts a mighty insult at Dickens, George Eliot, Wilkie Collins, Samuel Butler, various Brontës and Mrs Gaskell). It is certainly an object lesson in Trollope’s mastery of the grammar of cynicism, and in his doing what he does best – writing about money, and its power to destroy and corrupt. Yet it is too long: Trollope was a man who would have been well accompanied through life by a good sub-editor. Much of his output was, like Dickens’s, written for periodicals.

Stories are spun out with tiresome subplots to fill up the appointed 13 or 26 weeks, and to amuse a newly literate public, mostly from the lower middle class but fascinated by the antics of its betters. The Trollope formula is straightforward: and once one has read not just the political and Barchester novels, but also works such as The Claverings, The Belton Estate, Is He Popenjoy?, He Knew He Was Right, Orley Farm, Ralph the Heir, The Three Clerks and The Vicar of Bullhampton, one knows it well. There are always young men. They are usually heirs to substantial property. There are families of sisters whom they, their brothers, cousins and friends pursue matrimonially. Young women cruelly spurn obviously eligible young men and go off instead with unsuitable ones. Dowagers and other old dragons interfere in these matters. Rivalries arise. And then there is money: the young men are conned by unscrupulous friends into signing bills that cause them to be pursued by repulsive moneylenders, who are usually (not invariably) Jewish.

Debt – familiar to Trollope in his youth – is as omnipresent as maidens in crinolines. Beaux are evaluated according to their annual income. Trollope made a living out of this for 30 years, precisely because he never overestimated the taste, discernment or intellect of his reading public. He had much in common with Dickens, but Dickens did everything so much better. His imagination, his characters, his plots were superior – but so were his perception, and his humanity. Trollope is little more than light entertainment, and a mirror held up to a small section of Victorian life. The drip of his cynicism is always audible, the absence of any higher ideal always palpable. The academics aren’t always right, but in this case I fear they have a point. Barchester Towers | Folio Illustrated Book There are currently no reviews available. Click here to be the first to review this book. Barchester Towers Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for a change we sink to something lower When the kindly old bishop of Barchester dies, he does it at a most inconvenient time.

The political ministry has changed, and instead of the mitre being offered to his son, the stern Dr Grantly, it goes to the ineffectual Proudie and his insufferable wife. In their wake comes the vile, power-hungry Obadiah Slope, determined to win himself a wealthy wife and to interfere in every aspect of church life. Barchester will never be the same again. Production Details 9¾" x 6" The story of Barsetshire continues Barchester Towers continues the story of Eleanor and her father Septimus Harding from The Warden, but it introduces a host of other characters, delightfully comic and appalling by turns. The manipulative Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni, who reclines on a sofa all day, but ensnares plenty of hearts; the anxious Mrs Quiverful with her 14 children to maintain; Miss Thorne, obsessed with reviving the art of jousting… The inhabitants of Barchester are irresistible, and never more so than when they are locked in furious struggle. No one dissects 19th-century English society and the machinations of Church politics with more subtlety and humour than Trollope.

In this, one of his finest works, he exposes the absurdities and vanities of both parties. Yet while his pen is razor-sharp, his heart is gentle – Trollope always shows the reader the kinder values that should prevail, as they do in the happy ending he offers to his best-loved characters. ‘One of the most acute and humane chroniclers of public and private life in the High Victorian period’ KATHRYN HUGHES Click here to read a blog post by the illustrator, Bill Bragg. The Case of the Moving Cathedral: Mapping Trollope’s Barsetshire ‘I almost fear’, wrote Anthony Trollope in Framley Parsonage, ‘that it will become necessary, before this history be completed, to provide a map of Barsetshire for the due explanation of all these localities.’ In his Autobiography, Trollope reveals that he began work on such a map during the writing of Framley Parsonage (1860). Yet Trollope’s sketch did not come to light until 1927, when it was reproduced in Michael Sadleir’s Trollope: A Commentary.

Before 1927, Trollope scholars had puzzled over the inconsistencies within the Barsetshire novels, in which the wealth of geographical detail is sometimes vague or contradictory: the eagleeyed reader will notice a moving cathedral, a shrinking distance between two villages and a railway with an implausible detour built into its tracks. Ronald Knox, who continued Trollope’s Barsetshire narrative in his own novel Barsetshire Pilgrimage (1935), first mapped the fictional county in 1922. American enthusiast Spencer van Bokkelen Nichols published his critical essay ‘The Significance of Anthony Trollope’ in 1925, featuring a map based on his research into the texts and painted by George F. Muendel. When Trollope’s sketch was published, various differences between this and earlier maps were immediately clear, most noticeably the placing of Greshamsbury, which Nichols and Knox located in west Barsetshire, but which Trollope drew in the east.

The map reproduced as endpapers to the Folio edition is based on Trollope’s sketch and was drawn by Lynton Lamb, an English author, lithographer and illustrator who designed book covers, postage stamps and posters, and exhibited at the 1951 Festival of Britain. The jewel in the Trollopian crown ‘In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight,’ recalled Anthony Trollope in his Autobiography and, indeed, you can feel that pleasure bubbling up in every line of the book. Barchester Towers is not a cruel or satirical cackle so much as a gentle pondering of the absurdities of life, whether or not you happen to wear a clerical collar or know someone who does. Who can forget the great comic creations of Mrs Proudie, the interfering bishop’s wife, or Obadiah Slope, her appalling chaplain who oozes clamminess and spiritual pride? And then there are all those other Barchestonians, associated with the Church by community and familial ties, who are struggling to come to terms with the blistering pace of social and institutional change.

Some characters, like Francis Arabin, will accommodate themselves to the new order without compromising themselves, others, like Miss Thorne, the squire’s sister, will find themselves forever bewildered and left behind. Trollope charts their journeys with a blend of perception and empathy that gives a sense of wholeness to the book. For many devoted readers Barchester Towers is quite simply the jewel in the Trollopian crown. An extract from Kathryn Hughes's introduction Inside the book

Question: Who wrote tyhe Barchester novels ?
Answer: ANTHONY TROLLOPE