Misplaced Pages

#772227

73-528: The Belton Estate is a novel by Anthony Trollope , published first in 1865. The novel concerns itself with a young woman who has accepted one of two suitors, then discovered that he was unworthy of her love. It was the first novel published in the Fortnightly Review . Clara Amedroz is the only surviving child of the elderly squire of Belton Castle in Somersetshire . At twenty-five, she

146-531: A Trollope novel; the former British prime ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major ; the first Canadian prime minister, John A. Macdonald ; the economist John Kenneth Galbraith ; the merchant banker Siegmund Warburg , who said that "reading Anthony Trollope surpassed a university education"; the English judge Lord Denning ; the American novelists Sue Grafton , Dominick Dunne , and Timothy Hallinan ;

219-664: 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. His mother returned in 1831 and rapidly made a name for herself as a writer, soon earning a good income. His father's affairs, however, went from bad to worse. He gave up his legal practice entirely and failed to make enough income from farming to pay rent to his landlord, Lord Northwick . In 1834, he fled to Belgium to avoid arrest for debt. The whole family moved to

292-700: A campaign. Beverley had a long history of vote-buying and of intimidation by employers and others. Every election since 1857 had been followed by an election petition alleging corruption, and it was estimated that 300 of the 1,100 voters in 1868 would sell their votes. 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. Trollope described his period of campaigning in Beverley as "the most wretched fortnight of my manhood". He spent

365-557: 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. In 1868, he agreed to stand as a Liberal candidate in the borough of Beverley , in the East Riding of Yorkshire . Party leaders apparently took advantage of Trollope's eagerness to stand, and of his willingness to spend money on

438-682: A daily writing quota, and admitted that he wrote for money, he confirmed his critics' worst fears. Writers were expected to wait for inspiration, not to follow a schedule. Julian Hawthorne , an American writer, critic and friend of Trollope, while praising him as a man, calling him "a credit to England and to human nature, and ... [deserving] to be numbered among the darlings of mankind", also said that "he has done great harm to English fictitious literature by his novels". Henry James also 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

511-533: A day-boy to reduce his education costs. With no money or friends at these two high-ranked elite public schools , Trollope was bullied a great deal, enduring miserable experiences. At the age of 12, he fantasised about suicide. He also sought refuge in daydreams, constructing elaborate imaginary worlds. In 1827, his mother, Frances Trollope , moved to America, to the Nashoba Commune , along with Trollope's three younger siblings. After that failed, she opened

584-527: A following by the mid-20th century. Anthony Trollope was the son of barrister Thomas Anthony Trollope and the novelist and travel writer Frances Milton Trollope . Though a clever and well-educated man and a Fellow of New College, Oxford , Thomas Trollope failed at the Bar due to his bad temper. Ventures into farming proved unprofitable, and his expectations of inheritance were dashed when an elderly, childless uncle remarried and fathered children. Thomas Trollope

657-718: 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

730-493: A house near Bruges , where they lived entirely on Frances's earnings. In Belgium, Anthony was offered a commission in an Austrian cavalry regiment. To accept it, he needed to learn French and German; he had a year in which to do so. To acquire these languages without expense to himself and his family, he became an usher (assistant master) in a school in Brussels, making him the tutor of 30 boys. After six weeks there, however, he

803-436: A measure of prosperity. He took up fox hunting , which he would pursue enthusiastically for the next three decades. As a post-office surveyor, he interacted with local Irish people, whose company he found pleasant: "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." At

SECTION 10

#1732787051773

876-528: 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. 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. The early connection to Cornhill also brought Trollope into

949-695: A position in the Post Office as Surveyor to the Eastern District, comprising Essex , Suffolk, Norfolk , Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire , and most of Hertfordshire . Later in that year he moved to Waltham Cross , about 12 miles (19 km) from London in Hertfordshire, where he lived until 1871. 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 . He wrote to

1022-449: A project as Middlemarch without the precedent set by Trollope in his own novels of the fictional—yet thoroughly alive—county of Barsetshire. Other contemporaries of Trollope praised his understanding of the quotidian world of institutions, official life, and daily business; he is one of the few novelists who find the office a creative environment. W. H. Auden wrote of Trollope: "Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands

1095-420: A single thought or idea in it ... a sort of mental pabulum"). He also made it clear that he disliked Trollope's narrative method; Trollope's cheerful interpolations into his novels about how his storylines could take any twist their author wanted did not appeal to James's sense of artistic integrity. However, James thoroughly appreciated Trollope's attention to realistic detail, as he wrote in an essay shortly after

1168-402: A sister. Not long thereafter, Aylmer proposes to her, and she eagerly accepts. However, her happiness is short-lived. Her new fiancé proves shallow and cold, more concerned with his own comfort than with her happiness. Moreover, he expects her to subject herself to his domineering mother. Mr. Amedroz dies; and although Belton offers to allow Clara to remain at Belton Castle, she goes to live with

1241-560: A tailor fell into the hands of a moneylender and grew to more than £200; the lender regularly visited Trollope at his workplace to demand payments. Trollope hated his job, but saw no alternative and lived in constant fear of dismissal. In 1841, an opportunity to escape arose. A postal surveyor clerk in central Ireland, reported as incompetent, needed replacement. The position was not regarded as desirable, but Trollope, in debt and in trouble at work, volunteered for it; and his supervisor, William Maberly , eager to be rid of him, appointed him to

1314-505: A total of £400 on his campaign. The election was held on 17 November 1868 ; the novelist finished last of four candidates, with the victory going to the two Conservatives. 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. The fictional Percycross election in Ralph

1387-633: 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. " 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

1460-529: A writer, especially since Ireland was experiencing the Great Famine during his time there. However, these critics (who have been accused of bigoted opinions against Ireland) failed or refused to acknowledge both Trollope's true attachment to the country and the country's capacity as a rich literary field. Trollope published four novels about Ireland. Two were written during the Great Famine, while

1533-518: 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". He visited the penal colony of Port Arthur and its cemetery, Isle of the Dead . Despite this, the Australian press was uneasy, fearing he would misrepresent Australia in his writings. This fear

SECTION 20

#1732787051773

1606-636: Is because it was published at a time when Trollope was quickly putting out some of his finest works: "it got, almost literally, lost." Michael Sadleir considered it among Trollope's five most technically accomplished novels; and (contradicting James) saw it as a skilled triumph of art concealing art. Feminist literary criticism has approvingly noted the novel's quietly feminist narrator; its undercutting of sexual double standards; and its rejection of conventional Victorian views of femininity. Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope ( / ˈ t r ɒ l ə p / TROL -əp ; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882)

1679-443: Is old for an unmarried woman. Her father's income and savings have been dissipated to pay for the extravagances of her brother, who subsequently committed suicide. Since her father has no living sons, his estate, which is entailed , will pass upon his death to a distant cousin, Will Belton. Despite her poor prospects, she has two eligible suitors. Within four days of making her acquaintance, Will Belton proposes marriage to her. Belton

1752-498: Is warm-hearted, kind, and generous, and these qualities make a strong impression on Clara. However, she believes herself in love with Captain Frederic Aylmer, although he has given no clear signs of feeling that way toward her. Aylmer is impeccable in his manners, smooth, urbane, well-read, and a member of Parliament ; compared to him, Belton is awkward and unpolished. Clara rejects Belton's offer, urging him to regard her as

1825-410: Is worthy of her love. However, she believes that it would be wrong to transfer her affection from one man to another. Only after Mrs. Askerton and Will's sister Mary Belton persuade her that it would be unjust to withhold her affection from Will can she bring herself to put aside her scruples and accept him. Marital bliss ensues. The Belton Estate was written shortly after Can You Forgive Her? , and

1898-585: The Athenaeum , the Spectator , and the Saturday Review all expressed disappointment. Henry James was particularly scathing, describing the novel as "a work written for children; a work prepared for minds unable to think". The Belton Estate has since received rather more favourable critical attention. Halperin describes it as "one of [Trollope's] most undervalued novels"; he suggests that this

1971-498: The Associated Book Publishers . The latter was acquired by The Thomson Corporation in 1987. Chapman & Hall was sold again in 1998 as part of Thomson Scientific and Professional to Wolters Kluwer , who sold on its well-regarded mathematics and statistics list to CRC Press . Today the name of Chapman & Hall/CRC is used as an imprint for science and technology books by Taylor and Francis , part of

2044-784: The Fortnightly , and another £700 from Chapman & Hall for the first 2,000 copies. In 1865–66, the novel was serialised in the American Littell's Living Age . It was published in book form in 1866 by Lippincott of Philadelphia, by Harper in New York, and by Tauchnitz in Leipzig. In 1867, it was serialised in French in the Revue Nationale as L'Heritage des Belton , and a Dutch translation, Het Huis Belton ,

2117-457: The Informa group since 2004. Most notably, the company were publishers for Charles Dickens (from 1840 until 1844 and again from 1858 until 1870), Thomas Carlyle , William Thackeray , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Anthony Trollope , Eadweard Muybridge and Evelyn Waugh . They continued to publish previously unpublished Dickens material well into the 20th century. Another popular author on

2190-450: 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." In 1880, Trollope moved to

2263-581: The 1940s, Trollopians made further attempts to resurrect his reputation; he enjoyed a critical renaissance in the 1960s, and again in the 1990s. Some critics today have a particular interest in Trollope's portrayal of women—he caused remark even in his own day for his deep insight and sensitivity to the inner conflicts caused by the position of women in Victorian society. In the early 1990s, interest in Trollope increased. A Trollope Society flourishes in

The Belton Estate - Misplaced Pages Continue

2336-590: The Aylmer family in Yorkshire . Lady Aylmer, who wants her son to marry money or a title, exerts herself to make Clara miserable there; and Captain Aylmer offers no support to his betrothed. For Clara, the final straw comes when Lady Aylmer demands that she sever her ties with a friend. Mrs. Askerton, Lady Aylmer has learned, left an abusive drunken husband in India and lived with Colonel Askerton for several years before

2409-495: The Barsetshire series, many other well-developed characters populated each novel and in one, The Eustace Diamonds , the Pallisers play only a small role. 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 particular, critics, who concur that the book was not popular when published, generally acknowledge

2482-670: The Heir and the Tankerville election in Phineas Redux are closely based on the Beverley campaign. 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

2555-460: The Irish for their actions during the famine, were representative of the dismissal by English readers of any work written about the Irish. 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

2628-539: The London circle of artists, writers, and intellectuals, not least among whom were Smith and Thackeray. 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 . Postal history credits Trollope with introducing the pillar box (the ubiquitous mail-box) in

2701-469: The Trollope Society released an edition with an introduction by David Skilton. Trollope himself was apparently unimpressed by his work on the novel. In his 1883 autobiography, he wrote: "It is readable, and contains scenes which are true to life; but it has no peculiar merits, and will add nothing to my reputation as a novelist." Contemporary critics responded negatively to the work. Reviews in

2774-671: The United Kingdom, as does its sister society in the United States. In 2011, the University of Kansas 's Department of English, in collaboration with the Hall Center for the Humanities and in partnership with The Fortnightly Review , began awarding an annual Trollope Prize. The Prize was established to focus attention on Trollope's work and career. Notable fans have included Alec Guinness , who never travelled without

2847-474: 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 . When Hill left the Post Office in 1864, Trollope's brother-in-law, John Tilley , who was then Under-Secretary to the Postmaster General,

2920-504: The death of her husband freed her to marry him. Clara is duly appalled by her friend's past immorality, but cannot bring herself to cast off someone who has come to depend on her friendship. Pressed relentlessly on the subject by Lady Aylmer, she declares an end to her engagement and returns to Somersetshire, where she accepts the hospitality of the Askertons. Will Belton has never ceased to show his love for Clara, and she realises that he

2993-561: The disparity between the privileged background of his parents and their comparatively meagre means. Born in London, Anthony attended the Harrow School as a day pupil for three years, beginning at age seven, without paying fees because his father's farm, acquired for that purpose, lay in the neighbourhood. After a spell at a private school at Sunbury , he followed his father and two older brothers to Winchester College , where he remained for three years. He then returned to Harrow as

The Belton Estate - Misplaced Pages Continue

3066-656: The fictional county of "Barsetshire" (often collectively referred to as the Chronicles of Barsetshire ), dealing primarily with the clergy and landed gentry. Barchester Towers (1857) has probably become the best-known of these. Trollope's other major series, the Palliser novels , which overlap with the Barsetshire novels, concerned itself with politics, with the wealthy, industrious Plantagenet Palliser (later Duke of Omnium) and his delightfully spontaneous, even richer wife Lady Glencora featured prominently. However, as with

3139-455: The happiest years of my life". 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; 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

3212-485: The hearty tone of the girl’s answer, already began almost to doubt whether it was wise on his part to devote the innermost bin of his cellar to wine that was so cheap. In 1865, Trollope, George Henry Lewes , and others founded the Fortnightly Review . Somewhat against Trollope's judgement, it was decided that the new magazine was always to contain a novel. Trollope, called upon to produce the first novel, wrote The Belton Estate between 30 January and 4 September 1865; it

3285-702: The late 1870s, 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

3358-406: 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

3431-456: The most eloquent, of the 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; and in this possession our English race is not poor. Writers such as William Thackeray , George Eliot and Wilkie Collins admired and befriended Trollope, and Eliot noted that she could not have embarked on so ambitious

3504-408: The novelist's death: His [Trollope's] great, his inestimable merit was a complete appreciation of the usual. ... [H]e 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

3577-494: The numerous long train trips around Ireland he had to take to carry out his postal duties. Setting 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. Significantly, many of his earliest novels have Ireland as their setting—natural enough given that he wrote them or thought them up while he

3650-806: The poet Edward Fitzgerald ; the artist Edward Gorey , who kept a complete set of his books; the American author Robert Caro ; the playwright David Mamet ; the soap opera writer Harding Lemay ; the screenwriter and novelist Julian Fellowes ; liberal political philosopher Anthony de Jasay and theologian Stanley Hauerwas . Literary allusions in Trollope's novels have been identified and traced by Professor James A. Means, in two articles that appeared in The Victorian Newsletter (vols. 78 and 82) in 1990 and 1992 respectively. Chapman %26 Hall Upon Hall's death in 1847, Chapman's cousin Frederic Chapman began his progress through

3723-637: The position. Trollope's new work consisted largely of inspection tours in Connaught , and he based himself in Banagher , King's County. Although he had arrived with a bad reference from London, his new supervisor resolved to judge him on his merits, and within a year, by Trollope's account, he earned a reputation as a valuable public servant. His salary and travel allowance went much further in Ireland than they had in London, and he found himself enjoying

SECTION 50

#1732787051773

3796-561: The profits were not large, the book received notices in the press, and brought Trollope to the attention of the novel-reading public. He immediately began work on Barchester Towers , the second Barsetshire novel; upon its publication in 1857, he received an advance payment of £100 (about £12,000 in 2023 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

3869-420: The ranks of the company and eventually becoming a partner in 1858 and sole proprietor on Edward Chapman's retirement from Chapman & Hall in 1866. In 1868 author Anthony Trollope bought a third of the company for his son, Henry Merivale Trollope. From 1902 to 1930 the company's managing director was Arthur Waugh . In the 1930s the company merged with Methuen , a merger which, in 1955, participated in forming

3942-432: The role of money. Compared with him, even Balzac is too romantic." As trends in the world of the novel moved increasingly towards subjectivity and artistic experimentation, Trollope's standing with critics suffered. But Lord David Cecil noted in 1934 that "Trollope is still very much alive ... and among fastidious readers." He noted that Trollope was "conspicuously free from the most characteristic Victorian faults". In

4015-574: The sweeping satire The Way We Live Now (1875) as his masterpiece. In all, Trollope wrote 47 novels, 42 short stories, and five travel books, as well as nonfiction books titled Thackeray (1879) and Lord Palmerston (1882). After his death, Trollope's An Autobiography appeared and was a bestseller in London. Trollope's downfall in the eyes of the critics stemmed largely from this volume. Even during his writing career, reviewers tended increasingly to shake their heads over his prodigious output, but when Trollope revealed that he strictly adhered to

4088-719: The third deals with the famine as a theme ( The Macdermots of Ballycloran , The Kellys and the O'Kellys , and Castle Richmond , respectively). The Macdermots of Ballycloran was written while he was staying in the village of Drumsna , County Leitrim . 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" and "Father Giles of Ballymoy" ). Some critics argue that these works seek to unify an Irish and British identity, instead of viewing

4161-589: 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". 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. In

4234-474: The two as distinct. 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. 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." In particular, magazines such as The New Monthly Magazine , which included reviews that attacked

4307-522: The two novels have a principal theme in common: a woman trying to decide between two suitors, neither ineligible but differing greatly in their desirable and undesirable qualities. A theme in this novel, not uncommon among other Victorian authors but unusual in Trollope's work, is what John Halperin calls "mediated desire": the desirability of a thing increasing with the difficulty of obtaining it. When Captain Aylmer proposes to Clara, she responds with an enthusiastic affirmative; and this leads him to question

4380-476: The value of his acquisition: What is there that any man desires,—any man or any woman,—that does not lose half its value when it is found to be easy of access and easy of possession? Wine is valued by its price, not its flavour. Open your doors freely to Jones and Smith, and Jones and Smith will not care to enter them. Shut your doors obdurately against the same gentlemen, and they will use all their little diplomacy to effect an entrance. Captain Aylmer, when he heard

4453-723: 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 . Trollope died in Marylebone , London, in 1882 and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery , near the grave of his contemporary, Wilkie Collins . Trollope's first major success came with The Warden (1855)—the first of six novels set in

SECTION 60

#1732787051773

4526-446: The watering place of Dún Laoghaire , Trollope met Rose Heseltine (1821–1917), the daughter of a Rotherham bank manager. They became engaged when he had been in Ireland for just a year, but Trollope's debts and her lack of a fortune prevented them from marrying until 1844. Soon after they wed, Trollope was transferred to another postal district in the south of Ireland, and the family moved to Clonmel . Their first son, Henry Merivale,

4599-430: Was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era . Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire , which revolves around the imaginary county of Barsetshire . He also wrote novels on political, social, and gender issues, and other topical matters. Trollope's literary reputation dipped during the last years of his life, but he regained somewhat of

4672-473: 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. Trollope had long dreamt of taking a seat in the House of Commons . As

4745-420: 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 . However, he was negative about Adelaide's river,

4818-417: Was born in 1846, and their second, Frederick James Anthony, in 1847. 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. Trollope began writing on

4891-400: Was living and working in Ireland, but unlikely to enjoy warm critical reception, given the contemporary English attitude towards Ireland. 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

4964-505: Was offered a clerkship in the General Post Office , obtained through a family friend. Accepting this post, he returned to London in the autumn of 1834. Thomas Trollope died the following year. According to Trollope, "the first seven years of my official life were neither creditable to myself nor useful to the public service." At the Post Office, he acquired a reputation for unpunctuality and insubordination. A debt of £12 to

5037-401: Was one of the novels which novel readers were called upon to read." 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. 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

5110-590: Was opposed to the system of slavery as it existed in the South . In 1871, Trollope made his first trip to Australia , arriving in Melbourne on 28 July 1871 on the SS Great Britain , with his wife and their cook. The trip was made to visit their younger son, Frederick, who was a sheep farmer near Grenfell, New South Wales . He wrote his novel Lady Anna during the voyage. In Australia, he spent

5183-453: Was published in two volumes by Brast of Dordrecht. In 1871, a Russian translation was issued in St. Petersburg under the title Beltonskoy Pomesti ; in 1875, Hachette of Paris released a new French translation as La Domaine de Belton . More recently, an edition with an introduction by John Halperin was published in 1923; it was re-released in paperback by Oxford University Press in 1986. In 1991,

5256-519: Was serialised in the Fortnightly beginning with its first issue on 15 May 1865, and running through 1 January 1866. The novel was published in book form by Chapman & Hall in December 1865, with a date of 1866 on the title page. Against Trollope's wishes, it was released in three volumes rather than the two that he had intended. In his Autobiography , Trollope reported receiving a total of £1757 for The Belton Estate . Of this sum £800 came from

5329-416: Was the son of Rev. (Thomas) Anthony Trollope, rector of Cottered , Hertfordshire, himself the sixth son of Sir Thomas Trollope, 4th Baronet . The baronetcy later came to descendants of Anthony Trollope's second son, Frederic. As a son of landed gentry , Thomas Trollope wanted his sons raised as gentlemen who would attend Oxford or Cambridge . Anthony Trollope suffered much misery in his boyhood, owing to

#772227