Anthony Trollope

Rose Heseltine Trollope

In 1841, an opportunity to escape offered itself.[10] A postal surveyor's clerk in central Ireland was reported as being incompetent and in need of replacement. The position was not regarded as a desirable one at all; but Trollope, in debt and in trouble at his office, volunteered for it; and his supervisor, William Maberly, eager to be rid of him, appointed him to the position.[9]

Trollope based himself in Banagher, King's County, with his work consisting largely of inspection tours in Connaught. Although he had arrived with a bad reference from London, his new supervisor resolved to judge him on his merits; by Trollope's account, within a year he had the reputation of a valuable public servant.[11] His salary and travel allowance went much further in Ireland than they had in London, and he found himself enjoying a measure of prosperity.[9] He took up fox hunting, which he pursued enthusiastically for the next three decades. His professional role as a post-office surveyor brought him into contact with Irish people, and he found them pleasant company: "The Irish people did not murder me, nor did they even break my head. I soon found them to be good-humoured, clever—the working classes very much more intelligent than those of England—economical and hospitable."[11]

At the watering place of Dún Laoghaire, Trollope met Rose Heseltine (1821–1917),[11] the daughter of a Rotherham bank manager.[8] They became engaged when he had been in Ireland for a year; because of Trollope's debts and her lack of a fortune, they were unable to marry until 1844. Their first son, Henry Merivale, was born in 1846, and the second, Frederick James Anthony, in 1847.[12] Soon after their marriage, Trollope was transferred to another postal district in the south of Ireland, and the family moved to Clonmel.[13]

Though Trollope had decided to become a novelist, he had accomplished very little writing during his first three years in Ireland. At the time of his marriage, he had only written the first of three volumes of his first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran. Within a year of his marriage, he finished that work.[14]

Trollope began writing on the numerous long train trips around Ireland he had to take to carry out his postal duties.[15] Setting very firm goals about how much he would write each day, he eventually became one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote his earliest novels while working as a Post Office inspector, occasionally dipping into the "lost-letter" box for ideas.[16]

Plaque on Custom House in Belfast, where Trollope maintained his office as Postal Surveyor for the northern half of Ireland.[17]

Significantly, many of his earliest novels have Ireland as their setting—natural enough given that he wrote them or thought them up while he was living and working in Ireland, but unlikely to enjoy warm critical reception, given the contemporary English attitude towards Ireland.[18] Critics have pointed out that Trollope's view of Ireland separates him from many of the other Victorian novelists. Other critics claimed that Ireland did not influence Trollope as much as his experience in England, and that the society in Ireland harmed him as a writer, especially since Ireland was experiencing the Great Famine during his time there.[19] However, these critics have been accused of bigoted opinions against Ireland who fail or refuse to acknowledge both Trollope's true attachment to the country and the country's capacity as a rich literary field.[18][20]

Trollope published four novels about Ireland. Two were written during the Great Famine, while the third deals with the famine as a theme (The Macdermots of Ballycloran, The Kellys and the O'Kellys, and Castle Richmond, respectively).[21] The Macdermots of Ballycloran was written while he was staying in the village of Drumsna, County Leitrim.[22] The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848) is a humorous comparison of the romantic pursuits of the landed gentry (Francis O'Kelly, Lord Ballindine) and his Catholic tenant (Martin Kelly). Two short stories deal with Ireland ("The O'Conors of Castle Conor, County Mayo"[23] and "Father Giles of Ballymoy"[24]).[25] Some critics argue that these works seek to unify an Irish and British identity, instead of viewing the two as distinct.[26] Even as an Englishman in Ireland, Trollope was still able to attain what he saw as essential to being an "Irish writer": possessed, obsessed, and "mauled" by Ireland.[26][27]

The reception of the Irish works left much to be desired. Henry Colburn wrote to Trollope, "It is evident that readers do not like novels on Irish subjects as well as on others."[11] In particular, magazines such as The New Monthly Magazine, which included reviews that attacked the Irish for their actions during the famine, were representative of the dismissal by English readers of any work written about the Irish.[28][29]

In 1851, Trollope was sent to England, charged with investigating and reorganising rural mail delivery in south-western England and south Wales. The two-year mission took him over much of Great Britain, often on horseback. Trollope describes this time as "two of the happiest years of my life".[30]

In the course of it, he visited Salisbury Cathedral; and there, according to his autobiography, he conceived the plot of The Warden, which became the first of the six Barsetshire novels. His postal work delayed the beginning of writing for a year;[31] the novel was published in 1855, in an edition of 1,000 copies, with Trollope receiving half of the profits: £9 8s. 8d. in 1855, and £10 15s. 1d. in 1856. Although the profits were not large, the book received notices in the press, and brought Trollope to the attention of the novel-reading public.[30]

Anthony Trollope, [ca. 1859–1870]. Carte de Visite Collection, Boston Public Library.

He immediately began work on Barchester Towers, the second Barsetshire novel;[32] upon its publication in 1857,[33] he received an advance payment of £100 (about £10,100 in 2021 consumer pounds) against his share of the profits. Like The Warden, Barchester Towers did not obtain large sales, but it helped to establish Trollope's reputation. In his autobiography, Trollope writes, "It achieved no great reputation, but it was one of the novels which novel readers were called upon to read."[32] For the following novel, The Three Clerks, he was able to sell the copyright for a lump sum of £250; he preferred this to waiting for a share of future profits.[32]

Portrait of Anthony Trollope by Samuel Laurence, circa 1864

Although Trollope had been happy and comfortable in Ireland, he felt that as an author, he should live within easy reach of London. In 1859, he sought and obtained a position in the Post Office as Surveyor to the Eastern District, comprising Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and most of Hertfordshire.[34] Later in that year he moved to Waltham Cross, about 12 miles (19 km) from London in Hertfordshire, where he lived until 1871.[35]

In late 1859, Trollope learned of preparations for the release of the Cornhill Magazine, to be published by George Murray Smith and edited by William Makepeace Thackeray.[36] He wrote to the latter, offering to provide short stories for the new magazine. Thackeray and Smith both responded: the former urging Trollope to contribute, the latter offering £1,000 for a novel, provided that a substantial part of it could be available to the printer within six weeks. Trollope offered Smith Castle Richmond, which he was then writing; but Smith declined to accept an Irish story, and suggested a novel dealing with English clerical life as had Barchester Towers. Trollope then devised the plot of Framley Parsonage, setting it near Barchester so that he could make use of characters from the Barsetshire novels.[34][37][38]^: 207–08

Framley Parsonage proved enormously popular, establishing Trollope's reputation with the novel-reading public and amply justifying the high price that Smith had paid for it.[39] The early connection to Cornhill also brought Trollope into the London circle of artists, writers, and intellectuals, not least among whom were Smith and Thackeray.[38]^: 209[40]

By the mid-1860s, Trollope had reached a fairly senior position within the Post Office hierarchy, despite ongoing differences with Rowland Hill, who was at that time Chief Secretary to the Postmaster General.[34] Postal history credits Trollope with introducing the pillar box (the ubiquitous mail-box) in the United Kingdom. He was earning a substantial income from his novels. He had overcome the awkwardness of his youth, made good friends in literary circles, and hunted enthusiastically. In 1865, Trollope was among the founders of the liberal Fortnightly Review.[41]

When Hill left the Post Office in 1864, Trollope's brother-in-law, John Tilley, who was then Under-Secretary to the Postmaster General, was appointed to the vacant position. Trollope applied for Tilley's old post, but was passed over in favour of a subordinate, Frank Ives Scudamore. In the autumn of 1867, Trollope resigned his position at the Post Office, having by that time saved enough to generate an income equal to the pension he would lose by leaving before the age of 60.[42]

Trollope by Spy in Vanity Fair, 1873

Trollope had long dreamt of taking a seat in the House of Commons.[43] As a civil servant, however, he was ineligible for such a position. His resignation from the Post Office removed this disability, and he almost immediately began seeking a seat for which he might stand.[44] In 1868, he agreed to stand as a Liberal candidate in the borough of Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.[45]

Party leaders apparently took advantage of Trollope's eagerness to stand, and of his willingness to spend money on a campaign.[43] Beverley had a long history of vote-buying and of intimidation by employers and others. Every election since 1857 had been followed by a petition alleging corruption, and it was estimated that 300 of the 1,100 voters in 1868 would sell their votes.[46] The task of a Liberal candidate was not to win the election, but to give the Conservative candidates an opportunity to display overt corruption, which could then be used to disqualify them.[44]

Trollope described his period of campaigning in Beverley as "the most wretched fortnight of my manhood".[43] He spent a total of £400 on his campaign.[43] The election was held on 17 November 1868; the novelist finished last of four candidates, with the victory going to the two Conservatives.[44] A petition was filed, and a Royal Commission investigated the circumstances of the election; its findings of extensive and widespread corruption drew nationwide attention, and led to the disfranchisement of the borough in 1870.[46] The fictional Percycross election in Ralph the Heir and Tankerville election in Phineas Redux is closely based on the Beverley campaign.[43]

After the defeat at Beverley, Trollope concentrated entirely on his literary career. While continuing to produce novels rapidly, he also edited the St Paul's Magazine, which published several of his novels in serial form.

"Between 1859 and 1875, Trollope visited the United States five times. Among American literary men he developed a wide acquaintance, which included Lowell, Holmes, Emerson, Agassiz, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Bret Harte, Artemus Ward, Joaquin Miller, Mark Twain, Henry James, William Dean Howells, James T. Fields, Charles Norton, John Lothrop Motley, and Richard Henry Dana, Jr."[47]

Trollope wrote a travel book focusing on his experiences in the US during the American Civil War titled North America (1862). Aware that his mother had published a harshly anti-American travel book about the U.S. (titled the Domestic Manners of the Americans) and feeling markedly more sympathetic to the United States, Trollope resolved to write a work which would "add to the good feeling which should exist between two nations which ought to love each other." During his time in America, Trollope remained a steadfast supporter of the Union, being a committed abolitionist who was opposed to the system of slavery as it existed in the South.[48]

In 1871, Trollope made his first trip to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on 28 July 1871 on the SS Great Britain,[49] with his wife and their cook.[50] The trip was made to visit their younger son, Frederick, who was a sheep farmer near Grenfell, New South Wales.[51] He wrote his novel Lady Anna during the voyage.[51] In Australia, he spent a year and two days "descending mines, mixing with shearers and rouseabouts, riding his horse into the loneliness of the bush, touring lunatic asylums, and exploring coast and plain by steamer and stagecoach".[52] He visited the penal colony of Port Arthur and its cemetery, Isle of the Dead.[53] Despite this, the Australian press was uneasy, fearing he would misrepresent Australia in his writings. This fear was based on rather negative writings about America by his mother, Fanny, and by Charles Dickens. On his return, Trollope published a book, Australia and New Zealand (1873). It contained both positive and negative comments. On the positive side, it found a comparative absence of class consciousness, and praised aspects of Perth, Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney.[52] However, he was negative about Adelaide's river, the towns of Bendigo and Ballarat, and the Aboriginal population. What most angered the Australian papers, though, were his comments "accusing Australians of being braggarts".[52][48]

Grave in Kensal Green Cemetery, London

Trollope returned to Australia in 1875 to help his son close down his failed farming business. He found that the resentment created by his accusations of bragging remained. Even when he died in 1882, Australian papers still "smouldered", referring yet again to these accusations, and refusing to fully praise or recognize his achievements.[54]

In the late 1870's, Trollope furthered his travel writing career by visiting southern Africa, including the Cape Colony and the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. Admitting that he initially assumed that the Afrikaners had "retrograded from civilization, and had become savage, barbarous, and unkindly", Trollope wrote at length on Boer cultural habits, claiming that the "roughness... Spartan simplicity and the dirtiness of the Boer’s way of life [merely] resulted from his preference for living in rural isolation, far from any town." In the completed work, which Trollope simply titled South Africa (1877), he described the mining town of Kimberly as being "one of the most interesting places on the face of the earth."[48]

In 1880, Trollope moved to the village of South Harting in West Sussex. He spent some time in Ireland in the early 1880s researching his last, unfinished, novel, The Landleaguers. It is said that he was extremely distressed by the violence of the Land War.[55]