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Oxford Reader's Companion to Trollope

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This guide, at once learned and down to earth, provides a detailed look at one of the greatest writers of the 19th century, Anthony Trollope. Always a popular favorite, and only now being accorded the academic and critical attention he so richly deserves, this guide takes a reader through his many novels, travel pieces, criticism, translation and biography. Trollope was an indefatigable observer of middle- and upper-middle-class life at the height of the British Empire, during the mid-19th century. His unusually acute psychological observations -- still telling today -- and his keen eye and ear for social nuance and political intrigue are unparalleled in literature (George Eliot, a close friend, said she couldn't have embarked on "Middlemarch" without the groundwork Trollope laid in his Barsetshire novels). This volume includes thoughtful essays on all of the novels, with tidbits on critical reception at the time of their publication. It also describes aspects of Trollope's art -- his prose style, his sense of characterization, his plotting, his humor, his moral depth and his literary antecedents. For someone new to the author, it is a welcome introduction to his work; for those already in thrall to this supreme novelist's skill, it is an invaluable resource, a reminder of the breadth of Trollope's talent. It's a volume to be dipped into or savored at length. Filled with intelligence, insight and wit, this literary companion belongs on the shelf of any thoughtful reader's library.

This guide, at once learned and down to earth, provides a detailed look at one of the greatest writers of the 19th century, Anthony Trollope. Always a popular favorite, and only now being accorded the academic and critical attention he so richly deserves, this guide takes a reader through his many novels, travel pieces, criticism, translation and biography. Trollope was an indefatigable observer of middle- and upper-middle-class life at the height of the British Empire, during the mid-19th century. His unusually acute psychological observations -- still telling today -- and his keen eye and ear for social nuance and political intrigue are unparalleled in literature (George Eliot, a close friend, said she couldn't have embarked on "Middlemarch" without the groundwork Trollope laid in his Barsetshire novels). This volume includes thoughtful essays on all of the novels, with tidbits on critical reception at the time of their publication. It also describes aspects of Trollope's art -- his prose style, his sense of characterization, his plotting, his humor, his moral depth and his literary antecedents. For someone new to the author, it is a welcome introduction to his work; for those already in thrall to this supreme novelist's skill, it is an invaluable resource, a reminder of the breadth of Trollope's talent. It's a volume to be dipped into or savored at length. Filled with intelligence, insight and wit, this literary companion belongs on the shelf of any thoughtful reader's library.

In his long writing career, Anthony Trollope wrote 47 novels, dozens of short stories, plus assorted nonfiction such as the journal of a voyage to Iceland and a book about the Spanish Main. If you like his work as much as I do, you need a vade mecum, or companion, to help remind you which character belongs to which book, with assorted explanations of the major themes and background in the Victorian era in which Trollope is so firmly situated.

R. C. Terry's encyclopedic reference is both well-informed and well-written, and certainly comprehensive. Its only competition is Richard Mullen's PENGUIN COMPANION TO TROLLOPE, which is not quite so useful. Terry's book has over 500 entries, including several aids to navigating its 600 pages. The entry for Griselda, Marchioness of Hartletop, for example, identifies the 8 Trollope novels in which she appears, at times as an important character. There is no equivalent entry in the Mullen book.

Like Balzac, Proust, and Faulkner, Trollope has characters that frequently span two or more novels. This is especially true in the two big "sextets," the Barchester and Palliser novels, though not limited to them.

Anthony Trollope's novels have been a source of great joy to me over the years. There are few reading experiences comparable to the frisson I get when opening a new Trollope novel for the first time. I would not be surprised that that thrill will recur when I start re-reading them, as I hope to do some day.

I bought this book because I sometimes have difficulty keeping all the characters straight in Anthony Trollope's novels, especially when the same character appears in more than one novel. Now, when I get confused about the identity of a character, I can just look him or her up in this book. It is a very handy reference for me, and helps me enjoy Trollope's novels even more.