![]() ![]() ![]() But of course to be socially acceptable Trollope’s novels are so written that, as the Victorians would say, a mother could allow her daughter to read them.Ībove all, they’re fun. You can’t say this about Dickens, Thackeray, Meredith or Collins. His women are by and large as intelligent and often as well-informed as his men. Yet look beyond the period detail and Trollope is the male novelist of the period who gives his women characters the most convincing thoughts and ambitions. They are long, and demand we become interested in all the shades of thought and feeling surrounding the members of middle or upper-class families of the period 1850-1882. His novels have to be read perceptively, and here is an obstacle to popularity today. Victorians are often accused of ignoring characters’ sexuality, yet Trollope has one aristocratic young woman say she would like to be “notched” by a handsome young member of parliament, and the teenage daughter of a respectable family say that for men marriage must be like buying cheese: you want to taste several before you buy. Young women and men long for a marriage which will satisfy the contradictory desires for romance, sexual satisfaction, prosperity and social respectability. ![]() His characters constantly question whether in choosing to do the best things for themselves, they can also do good things for their families and humanity as a whole. Trollope’s novels are amusing, immensely engaging and frequently moving, but at their core is the age-old problem of how to lead a good life in a dangerous and possibly wicked world. ![]()
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