The Text of Trollope's "Ayala's Angel"

Abstract

ASOMEWHAT long convalescence recently gave me ample leisure for Trollopian criticism, a subject in which I had formerly dabbled. In an article which appeared in the Review of English studies for January, 1941, I deal with the text of Trollope's posthumous Autobiography. I first allege that Trollope's later hand was very rapid, careless, and illegible. My evidence was one short letter, written by Trollope in 1870. I then narrate that nearly two years before, in re-reading the Autobiography, I made over a dozen corrections, most of them very easy, nearly all of which were confirmed by reference to the manuscript, which (as I later learned, or was reminded) had been acquired by the British Museum in 1932. In a second article, which appeared in the Review of English studies for April, 1941, I go further, and suggest that Trollope was at times a careless proofreader. Discussing the text of Phineas redux, I seek to show from external evidence (the Autobiography) that Trollope was exceptionally preoccupied during the six months in which Phineas redux ran in the weekly Graphic and from internal evidence that the text of the novel is in fact very shaky--much more so than any novel, known to me, of which Trollope read the proofs. I published this second article with trepidation, for after finishing it I was credibly informed that the manuscript of Phineas redux is in America.' In both articles I offer some general observations on the application of conjectural criticism to the texts of authors, meaning by modern such authors as are known or may be presumed to have read their proofs-as Ben Jonson did and Shakespeare did not. The matter is not of the first importance; but it is of some importance, and it has been strangely neglected. When I report that I and my friends have detected the corruption of contrive into