Pinning Trollope downTrollope and Politics: A Study of the Pallisers and Others. John HalperinThe Novels of Anthony Trollope. James R. KincaidAnthony Trollope. Arthur Pollard

Abstract

Arthur Pollard goes through the canon, isolating sustained social criticism like The Way We Live Now from the Palliser and Barset series, adding chapters on Other Longer Novels, 1858-70, Shorter Novels, 1863-74, and the late novels. As a way of encompassing the oeuvre it is adequate, but dealing with the ghastly Brown, Jones and Robinson and other minor novels makes little sense where space is so limited. Trollope wrote his share of rubbish, as Priestley said, and it would be better to have concentrated on what really matters. In fact, it is sometimes hard to see where Pollard stands on the ceaseless flow and the mechanical talent (p. 155), because he cannot discriminate sufficiently. Responding conventionally to Trollope's realism, he plays down the progress-to-pessimism view in favor of his consistency, dwelling on the personal and domestic dramas at the heart of Trollope's work. His best insights concern the importance of birth and breeding in the Barset series and their revelation of Trollope's essential conservatism and snobbery, although he appreciates that the author' s ambivalence involves criticism of Barchester worthies as well as London