Spy cartoon of the novelist, 5 April 1873
'Mr Trollope is a student and delineator of costume rather
than humanity. He does not, as George Eliot does, pry into the great problems
of life, or attempt to show the mournful irony of fate. He is not a deep
thinker, but he is an acute observer, and with the knack of divining what most
impresses the commonplace people who most delight in novels. He is a correct
painter of the small things of our small modern English life so far as it
presents itself to the eye – deeper than this he does not go. Good natured and
genial as becomes a successful man, his manners are a little rough, as is his
voice. For many years he has amused readers without ever shocking them.'
Malcolm Johnson writes:
Jehu Junior obviously did not care for Trollope. Usually he
snipes, but here heavy artillery is used. He would be surprised that his novels
are still popular and some have been filmed. Spy’s cartoon is also less than
flattering, with the thumb held erect whilst smoking and his coat buttoned once
and then parting over a small but comfortable corporation. Whilst walking with
the novelist on St George’s Hill near Walton, Ward tells us that Trollope
‘admired the scenery and I noted the beauties of Nature in another way committing
those mental reservations to my mental notebook, and came home to what fun I
could get out of them’. When the caricature appeared, Trollope was furious and
Ward received a ‘stiff letter’ from his publisher who had introduced him.
Money, or rather the lack of it, played a large part in
Trollope’s early life although he did attend Harrow and Winchester . In 1834 aged 19, he received an
offer of a clerkship in the General Post Office but he acquired a reputation
for unpunctuality and insubordination. A debt of £12 to a tailor fell into the
hands of a moneylender and grew to over £200; the lender regularly visited him
at his office to demand payments.
Trollope hated his work, but saw no alternatives and lived
in constant fear of dismissal.
Fortunately he was able to secure a job as a postal
surveyor’s clerk in central Ireland .
His salary and travel allowance went much farther in Ireland
than they had in London ,
and he found himself enjoying a measure of prosperity. In 1844 he married Rose
Heseltine, the daughter of a Rotherham bank manager.
Trollope began writing on the numerous long train trips
around Ireland
he had to take to carry out his postal duties. Setting very firm goals about
how much he would write each day, he eventually became one of the most prolific
writers of all time. In 1851, Trollope was sent to England , charged with investigating
and reorganizing rural mail delivery in a portion of the country. The two-year
mission took him over much of Great
Britain , often on horseback. And when he
visited Salisbury Cathedral he conceived the plot of The Warden.
In 1859, he obtained a position in the Post Office as
Surveyor to the Eastern District, and moved to Waltham Cross. In 1867, he
resigned his position at the Post Office, and concentrated solely on his
writing.
Trollope is first and foremost a novelist who thrives on
characterization. His cast of characters places clergy in their natural habitat
from the bishop (and Mrs Proudie) in the Palace to Mr Quiverful in his hamlet.
His stories were often close to reality.
He increasingly moved towards the kind of liberalism in
religion that Newman and Keble so hated. His acceptance of the Church of
England as a comfortably irrational institution is reflected in his novels and
their characters, such as Mrs Proudie, Mr Slope and Archdeacon Grantley.
Anthony did not believe in the literal resurrection of the
body; in 1874, eight years before his death, he was, with Millais, one of the
sixteen founders of the Cremation Society. It was to be another ten years
before cremation was legalised so he was buried at Kensal Green.
This is an extract from Victorian Worthies: Vanity Fair’s Leaders of Church and State by Malcolm Johnson, available in hardback from www.dltbooks.com and all good bookstores.
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