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Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

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Unfairly the author was deemed a disgrace during his school days and he burns with indignation over his treatment fifty years later. At twelve he went from Harrow to Winchester. His father had taken two farms, had no capital, and had given up his career as a lawyer. After Winchester Trollope returned to Harrow.

When his mother wrote a book about her stay in the United States, it was a success. The family's pecuniary circumstances improved, but the boy remained friendless. DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE AMERICANS was the first of Mrs. Trollope's travel books. In her case politics was an affair of the heart.

At Orley Farm the mother surrounded the family with moderate comforts. After two years the family decamped to Belgium to avoid creditors. Mrs. Trollope wrote novels while a son and her husband were dying of consumption. The author then hurried to London to assume a job at the Post Office. After the father's death, Mrs. Trollope moved back to England. The author's father had had a life of misery through no fault of his own, suffering a blighted ambition.

Seven years later Anthony went to Ireland to work as a surveyor clerk for the Post Office. He met his wife there and married in 1844. In 1845 his first novel was finished. Two Irish novels and an historical novel were failures. He surveyed postal facilities in England and conceived of THE WARDEN story at Salisbury. It was begun in 1852. When it was published in 1855 there were notices of it in the press. It was not as great a failure as the others. He wrote BARCHESTER TOWERS in railway coaches as he traveled in them on Post Office business. The author's brother supplied the plot for DR. THORNE.

To pursue his other career Trollope allotted himself so many pages a week. (This bit in the autobiography is famous.) He finished DR. THORNE on one day and started THE BERTRAMS the next. Trollope went to Egypt, to Scotland, to the West Indies for the Post Office. He created FRAMLEY PARSONAGE for CORNHILL MAGAZINE. John Everett Millais illustrated FRAMLEY PARSONAGE, THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON, PHINEAS FINN, and RACHEL RAY.

Anthony Trollope settled at Waltham Cross and in 1866 became a member of the Garrick Club and subsequently a number of other clubs. His comments on other novelists of the 19th century are interesting. He claims authors and critics should not be in the same company. In 1867 THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET was brought out in monthly installments. That same year Trollope resigned from the Post Office. Evidently Anthony Trollope inherited his mother's stamina.