TROLLOPE, ANTHONY (1815-1882), English novelist, Trollope had always dreamt of novel-writing, and his was born in Keppel Street, Russell Square, London, accord- Irish experiences seemed to supply him with promising ing to most authorities, on 24th April 1815 ; in his own subjects. With some assistance from his mother he got Autobiography he merely gives the year. His father, a his first two books, The Macdermots of Ballycloran and The barrister, who had been fellow of New College, Oxford, Kellys and the O'Kellys, published, the one in 1847, the brought himself and his family into the sorest straits by other the next year. But neither was in the least a unbusiness-like habits, by quarrelling with his profession, success, though the second perhaps deserved to be ; or at least with the attorneys, and by injudicious specu- and a third, La Vendee, which followed in 1850, besides lations, especially in farming. Trollope's mother, Frances being a much worse book than either, was an equal Milton, according to her son, was nearly thirty when she failure. Trollope made various other literary attempts, married in 1809. By her husband's wish she made a but for a time ill fortune attended all of them. Meanwhile strange journey to America in 1827, for the purpose of he was set on a new kind of post-office work, which suited setting up a kind of fancy shop in Cincinnati, which him even better than his former employment - a sort of failed utterly. Her visit, however, furnished her with the roving commission to inspect rural post deliveries and means of writing The Domestic Manners of the Americans. devise their extension, first in Ireland, then throughout This at once brought her in a considerable sum, and thence- the west of England and South Wales. That he did good forward she continued to be the mainstay of her family. work is undeniable ; but his curious conception of official Her husband being obliged at last actually to fly the duty (on his discharge of which he prided himself imcountry from his creditors, his wife maintained him by mensely) is exhibited by his confessions that he "got his her pen, at Bruges, till his death there in 1835. For some hunting out of it," and that he felt " the necessity of time Mrs Trollope wrote chiefly travels ; but she soon be- travelling miles enough [he was paid by mileage] to keep came known as a novelist, and was very industrious. Her his horses." It was during this work that he struck the novels, the best of which are probably The Vicar of Wrex- vein which gave him fortune and fame - which might per-hill and The Widow Barnaby, are now rarely read, and haps have given him more fame and not much less fortune indeed were never at their best above good circulating if he had not worked it so hard - by conceiving The library level : they are written with cleverness indeed, and Warden. This was published in 1855. It brought him a certain amount of observation, but with many faults of little immediate profit, nor was even Barchester Towers, taste, and with an almost total want of artistic complete- which followed, very profitable, though it contains his freshness and form. Her late beginning, her industrious career est, his most original, and, with the exception of The Last (for she wrote steadily for more than thirty years, till her Chronicle of Barset, his best work. The two made him a death in October 1863, at Florence), and the entire absence reputation, however, and in 1858 he was able for the first in her of any blue-stocking or femme-savante weakness time to sell a novel, The Three Clerks, for a substantial would have made her remarkable, even if she had not sum, £250. A journey on post-office business to the West transmitted, as she undoubtedly did transmit, her talent, Indies gave him material for a book of travel, The West much increased, to her children. Indies and the Spanish Main, which he frankly and quite Anthony Trollope was the third son. By his own truly acknowledges to be much better than some subseaccount few English men of letters have had an unhappier quent work of his in the same kind. From this time his childhood and youth. He puts down his own misfortunes, production (mainly of novels) was incessant, and the sums at Harrow, at Winchester, at Harrow again, and elsewhere, which he received were very large, amounting in one case to to his father's pecuniary circumstances, which made his own as much as £3525 for a single book, and to nearly .E70,000 appearance dirty and shabby, and subjected him to various in the twenty years between 1859 and 1879. All these humiliations. But it is permissible to suspect that this particulars are given with great minuteness by himself, was not quite the truth, and that some peculiarities of and are characteristic. The full high tide of his fortunes temper, of which in after life he had many, contributed to began when the Cornhill Magazine was established in the his unpopularity. At any rate he seems to have reached autumn of 1859. He was asked at short notice to write a. the verge of manhood as ignorant as if he had had no edu- novel, and wrote Framley Parsonage, which was extremely cation at all. While living abroad he tried ushership ; but popular ; two novels immediately preceding it, The Bei.- at the age of nineteen he was pitchforked by favour (for trains and Castle Richmond, had been much less successful. he could not pass even the ridiculous examination then ties ; and he seems to have kept some very queer company, Linda Tressel (1868); Phineas Finn, He Knew He Was Right (1869); which long afterwards stood him in stead as models for Brown, Jones, and Robinson, The Vicar of Bullhampton, An Editor's-some of his novel pictures. At last in August 1841 he Tales, Cmsar (1870); Sir Harry Hotspur of Huniblethzcaile, Ralph obtained the appointment of clerk to one of the post-office the Heir (1871) ; The Golden Lion of Oranpere (1872) ; The Eustaccsurveyors in a remote part of Ireland, with a very small Diamonds, Australia and New Zealand(1873); Phineas &dux, Harry Heatheote of Gangoil, Lady Anna (1874) ; The Way We Live Now nominal salary. This salary, however, was practically (1875) ; The Prime Minister (1876) ; The American Senator (1877); quadrupled by allowances ; living was cheap ; and the life Is He Fopenjoy I South Africa ( 1878) ; John Cirrald !gale, 7A: Eye for x up his mirror steadily to nature, and that the mirror itself was fashioned with no inconsiderable art. (G. SA.)