Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

pleasantry to its publication after another period of six years,

and to the declaration of the critics that it has been the work of

a period of life at which the power of writing novels had passed

from me. Not improbably, however, these pages may be printed first.

In 1866 and 1867 The Last Chronicle of Barset was brought out by

George Smith in sixpenny monthly numbers. I do not know that this

mode of publication had been tried before, or that it answered very

well on this occasion. Indeed the shilling magazines had interfered

greatly with the success of novels published in numbers without

other accompanying matter. The public finding that so much might

be had for a shilling, in which a portion of one or more novels was

always included, were unwilling to spend their money on the novel

alone. Feeling that this certainly had become the case in reference

to novels published in shilling numbers, Mr. Smith and I determined

to make the experiment with sixpenny parts. As he paid me (pounds)3000

for the use of my MS., the loss, if any, did not fall upon me. If

I remember right the enterprise was not altogether successful.

Taking it as a whole, I regard this as the best novel I have

written. I was never quite satisfied with the development of the

plot, which consisted in the loss of a cheque, of a charge made

against a clergyman for stealing it, and of absolute uncertainty

on the part of the clergyman himself as to the manner in which the

cheque had found its way into his hands. I cannot quite make myself

believe that even such a man as Mr. Crawley could have forgotten

how he got it, nor would the generous friend who was anxious to

supply his wants have supplied them by tendering the cheque of a

third person. Such fault I acknowledge,--acknowledging at the same

time that I have never been capable of constructing with complete

success the intricacies of a plot that required to be unravelled.

But while confessing so much, I claim to have portrayed the mind

of the unfortunate man with great accuracy and great delicacy. The

pride, the humility, the manliness, the weakness, the conscientious

rectitude and bitter prejudices of Mr. Crawley were, I feel, true

to nature and well described. The surroundings too are good. Mrs.

Proudie at the palace is a real woman; and the poor old dean dying

at the deanery is also real. The archdeacon in his victory is very

real. There is a true savour of English country life all through

the book. It was with many misgivings that I killed my old friend

Mrs. Proudie. I could not, I think, have done it, but for a resolution

taken and declared under circumstances of great momentary pressure.

It was thus that it came about. I was sitting one morning at work

upon the novel at the end of the long drawing-room of the Athenaeum

Club,--as was then my wont when I had slept the previous night in

London. As I was there, two clergymen, each with a magazine in his

hand, seated themselves, one on one side of the fire and one on

the other, close to me. They soon began to abuse what they were

reading, and each was reading some part of some novel of mine. The

gravamen of their complaint lay in the fact that I reintroduced

the same characters so often! "Here," said one, "is that archdeacon

whom we have had in every novel he has ever written." "And here,"

said the other, "is the old duke whom he has talked about till

everybody is tired of him. If I could not invent new characters, I

would not write novels at all." Then one of them fell foul of Mrs.

Proudie. It was impossible for me not to hear their words, and

almost impossible to hear them and be quiet. I got up, and standing

between them, I acknowledged myself to be the culprit. "As to Mrs.

Proudie," I said, "I will go home and kill her before the week is

over." And so I did. The two gentlemen were utterly confounded,

and one of them begged me to forget his frivolous observations.

I have sometimes regretted the deed, so great was my delight in

writing about Mrs. Proudie, so thorough was my knowledge of all the

shades of her character. It was not only that she was a tyrant,

a bully, a would-be priestess, a very vulgar woman, and one who

would send headlong to the nethermost pit all who disagreed with

her; but that at the same time she was conscientious, by no means

a hypocrite, really believing in the brimstone which she threatened,

and anxious to save the souls around her from its horrors. And as

her tyranny increased so did the bitterness of the moments of her

repentance increase, in that she knew herself to be a tyrant,--till

that bitterness killed her. Since her time others have grown up

equally dear to me,--Lady Glencora and her husband, for instance;

but I have never dissevered myself from Mrs. Proudie, and still

live much in company with her ghost.

I have in a previous chapter said how I wrote Can You Forgive Her?

after the plot of a play which had been rejected,--which play had

been called The Noble Jilt. Some year or two after the completion

of The Last Chronicle, I was asked by the manager of a theatre to

prepare a piece for his stage, and I did so, taking the plot of

this novel. I called the comedy Did He Steal It? But my friend the

manager did not approve of my attempt. My mind at this time was

less attentive to such a matter than when dear old George Bartley

nearly crushed me by his criticism,--so that I forget the reason

given. I have little doubt but that the manager was right. That

he intended to express a true opinion, and would have been glad to

have taken the piece had he thought it suitable, I am quite sure.

I have sometimes wished to see during my lifetime a combined

republication of those tales which are occupied with the fictitious

county of Barsetshire. These would be The Warden, Barchester

Towers, Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage, and The Last Chronicle

of Barset. But I have hitherto failed. The copyrights are in the

hands of four different persons, including myself, and with one of

the four I have not been able to prevail to act in concert with the

others. [Footnote: Since this was written I have made arrangements

for doing as I have wished, and the first volume of the series will

now very shortly be published.]

In 1867 I made up my mind to take a step in life which was not

unattended with peril, which many would call rash, and which, when

taken, I should be sure at some period to regret. This step was

the resignation of my place in the Post Office. I have described

how it was that I contrived to combine the performance of its duties

with my other avocations in life. I got up always very early; but

even this did not suffice. I worked always on Sundays,--as to which

no scruple of religion made me unhappy,--and not unfrequently I

was driven to work at night. In the winter when hunting was going

on, I had to keep myself very much on the alert. And during the

London season, when I was generally two or three days of the week

in town, I found the official work to be a burden. I had determined

some years previously, after due consideration with my wife, to

abandon the Post Office when I had put by an income equal to the

pension to which I should be entitled if I remained in the department

till I was sixty. That I had now done, and I sighed for liberty.

The exact time chosen, the autumn of 1867, was selected because I

was then about to undertake other literary work in editing a new