The Small House at Allington (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Anthony Trollope (Author), Julian Thompson (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 1991

Engaged to the ambitious and self-serving Adolphus Crosbie, Lily Dale is devastated when he jilts her for the aristocratic Lady Alexandrina. Although crushed by his faithlessness, Lily still believes she is bound to her unworthy former fiance for life and therefore condemned to remain single after his betrayal. And when a more deserving suitor pays his addresses, she is unable to see past her feelings for Crosbie. Written when Trollope was at the height of his popularity, The Small House at Allington (1864) contains his most admired heroine in Lily Dale a young woman of independent spirit who nonetheless longs to be loved and is a moving dramatization of the ways in which personal dilemmas are affected by social pressures.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8 Up-Trollope's tale about Lily Dale, and her love for the calculating Adolphus Crosbie.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Novel by Anthony Trollope, published serially from September 1862 to April 1864 and in two volumes in 1864, the fifth of his six BARSETSHIRE NOVELS. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

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Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (June 4, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140433252
• ISBN-13: 978-0140433258
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #430,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No Need to Read Other Barsetshire Novels to Appreciate This, August 22, 2000

By 

Mark K. Jensen (Tacoma, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Small House at Allington (Worlds Classics) (Paperback)

Too much, probably, is made of this being one of "the Barsetshire novels," seeing that Trollope did not at first include it with the five others classed in that category, and that there is no need whatsoever to have read any of them to be drawn deeply into the world of its characters -- characters the creation of whose palpable, individual realness is the author's great gift. *The Small House at Allington* is remarkable for the balance accorded to six different social strata: (1) the upper reaches of the aristocracy (the De Courcy family and also the first appearance of Plantagenet Palliser); (2) the minor gentry, represented by the squire Dale of Allington and his presumptive heir; (3) their respectable but somewhat impoverished dependents (Mrs. Dale and her two daughters, Bell and Lily, whose love interests provide the main substance of the plot); (4) the world of men who must work to make their way in the world (in which category fall most of the suitors of the novel); (5) those on the fringe of "respectability" (Mrs. Roper's boarding house in London); and (6) the class of domestic servants (especially one Hopkins, head gardener at Allington -- but Trollope seems to make an effort to portray other members of this class when the occasion provides an opportunity). Dozens of other minor characters appear briefly and vividly in the spotlight, each animated with the spark of life.

The plot is unspectacular in the extreme, but for lovers of Trollope, the ability to understand the drama and heroism of ordinary life, as well as its tedium, pettiness, and villainy, will always be his special appeal. This novel is slow, perhaps, to seize the reader's interest -- at least, so I found it -- but in the end the volume acquires a remarkable momentum from the progress of its various subplots and possesses in the final two hundred pages a sort of urgency in its narrative momentum that carries it briskly along. For me, the "hobbledehoyhood" of Johnny Eames is sometimes hard to bear. Trollope even says at the end of the novel that "I feel I have been in fault in giving such prominence to a hobbledehoy." But biographers tell us that such was Trollope in his youth, so a grateful reader is, I suppose, bound to cherish a special feeling for Johnny Eames also.

At one moment a character arrives at his sister-in-law's house in London and is obliged to wait several moments while the servant changes into livery before answering the knock at the door -- for it is thus that the daughter of an earl clings to the trappings of her rank. I love such glimpses into the ways of a vanished world, and they are one of the charms of reading Trollope. But the ways of the human heart have changed less than its outward customs, and the twenty-first-century reader will encounter the shock of recognition several dozen times in the course of reading *The Small House at Allington*.

The handsome Oxford University Press edition, a bargain at the price, has an insightful introduction by James R. Kincaid. If only it were presented as an afterword! Is there really any point in giving away the plot of a novel?

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beloved cad, a flawed hero, and a lovelorn lady., July 9, 1998

By 

Leonard L. Wilson (Springfield, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Small House at Allington (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics) (Hardcover)

Lily Dale is sublimely happy when she becomes engaged to Adolphus Crosbie, assistant secretary in a government agency and a mortal Apollo to Lily. And Crosbie is happy too--while he is with Lily. But when he is invited to spend a week at Courcy Castle and is looked upon with favor by Lady Alexandrina De Courcy, the temptation to marry into a noble family is too much for him, and he becomes engaged for the second time in a few weeks.

John Eames, a young government clerk, has loved Lily Dale for years. He longs to replace Crosbie in the jilted girl's affections, but she still loves Crosbie, despite his treachery. The ambitious Crosbie, however, soon finds that his aristocratic bride brings no money into the marriage, but maintains her expensive tastes. The marriage is a disaster from the start.

As John Eames' fortunes rise and Crosbie's decline, the reader is led to believe, as all Lily's friends urge, that Eames will eventually win the heartbroken lass, but Lily stubbornly clings to her hopeless love.

There are several subplots, some of them humorous, as Trollope's settings range from castle to rooming house, with vivid characters from varying social strata. As always, the characterizations are thorough and convincing. These are real people who behave realistically. Even when their actions seem surprising, they flow logically from the strong personal basis which the author has built into each character. Although the outcome is not nearly so pleasing as that of "Dr. Thorne," for instance, this book is a solidly enjoyable novel from one of the greatest literary series.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trollope's gentle satire works, July 15, 2000

By 

Robert H. Nunnally Jr. "gurdonark" (Allen, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Small House at Allington (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

The Small House at Allington, one of Trollope's Barsetshire novels of provincial life, does not require a familiarity with the other books in the series. Its plot device, much like the slightly superior Framley Parsonage, is to show the effects of poor choices and the way in which life sometimes gives folks pretty just desserts for the silly choices they make. As with all Trollope, though, the plot is a jaunty cover for his real theme, which is a social satire of his era in an effort to illumine human nature. Sometimes Trollope's plot devices had a different effect on the reader than he intended. Lily Dale, placed in the novel largely to illustrate the consequences attendant to self-willed dedication to victorian ideas of true love, in fact became a celebrated character in her time as an example of a perfect jilted lover. It is somewhat amusing reading the novel today, seeing how Trollope showed Lily as a stubborn girl from a stubborn family, stubbornly devoted to "Love", and then to think that in his time, Lily was seen as a perfect avatar of true love.

This is a good read--lots of rich satire of persons of both high and low station. It is not Trollope's best, but it is a good read, and well worth a Sunday afternoon read. If you have not read Trollope, prepare for a richly human story laced with satire. If you have read Trollope, then expect a wit slightly less sharp but a story a bit more engaging than his others. His character Crosbie, the "villain" of sorts, is a fine creation, and this one is worth a read.