Anthony Trollope, página 8 de 28

"Trollope did not write for posterity. He wrote for the day, the moment; but these are just the writers whom posterity is apt to put into its pocket." Henry James"A wise man told me I would learn more about life from a great novelist than from any other source. I did not believe him. Now I wouldnt dream of going on holiday without a Trollope. He has enlarged my world." Sir Alec Guinness"Trollope kills me, kills me with his excellence!" Leo Tolstoy"[Trollopes novels] are filled with belief in goodness without the slightest tinge of maudlin." George EliotConsidered by contemporary critics to be Trollopes greatest novel, The Way We Live Now is a satire of the literary world of London in the 1870s and a bold indictment of the new power of speculative finance in English life. I was instigated by what I conceived to be the commercial profligacy of the age, Trollope said. His story concerns Augustus Melmotte, a French swindler and scoundrel, and his daughter, to whom Felix Carbury, adored son of the authoress Lady Carbury, is induced to propose marriage for the sake of securing a fortune. Trollope knew well the difficulties of dealing with editors, publishers, reviewers, and the public; his portrait of Lady Carbury, impetuous, unprincipled, and unswervingly devoted to her own self-promotion, is one of his finest satirical achievements.His picture of late nineteenth century England is of a society on the verge of moral bankruptcy, where the traditional virtues of Tory squirearchy, represented by Roger Carbury, prove to be no match for the financial genius of Augustus Melmotte. In The Way We Live Now Trollope combines his talents as a portraitist and his skills as a storyteller to give us life as it was lived more than a hundred years ago.

Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published in 1873 as a serial in The Graphic. It is the fourth of the "Palliser" series of novels and the sequel to the second book of the series, Phineas Finn.His beloved wife having died during pregnancy, Phineas Finn finds Irish society and his modest government position in Ireland dull and unsatisfying after the excitement of his former career as a Member of Parliament. Back in England, the Liberals are determined to overturn the Conservative majority in Parliament. As Finn had been considered the most promising of the younger set, he is encouraged to stand for Parliament again, and he takes the risk of giving up his salaried position.Returning to London, he renews his acquaintance with the wealthy widow Madame Max Goesler. In the past, she had offered to marry him and had been gently turned down; after an awkward first encounter, they renew their friendship.In the political arena, Finn loses the election by a narrow margin, but his luck does not desert him. On appeal, it is found that his opponent had bribed some of the voters; their disqualification is enough to give Finn the victory.

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope Phineas Finn is a novel by Anthony Trollope and the name of its leading character. The novel was first published as a monthly serial from October 1867 to May 1868 in St Pauls Magazine.It is the second of the "Palliser" series of novels. Its sequel, Phineas Redux, is the fourth novel in the series. The character of Phineas Finn is said to have been partly inspired by Sir John Pope Hennessy (grandfather of the museum director of the same name), a Roman Catholic from Cork, who was elected as an "Irish Nationalist Conservative" Member of Parliament for Kings County in 1859.It deals with both British parliamentary politics of the 1860s, including voting reform (secret ballot and eliminating rotten boroughs and Irish tenant-right) and Finns romances with women of fortune, which would secure his financial future.Finn is the only son of a successful Irish doctor, Dr Malachi Finn of Killaloe, County Clare, who sends him to London to become a lawyer. He proves to be a lackadaisical student, but being pleasant company and strikingly handsome to boot, he makes many influential friends. One of them, a politician, Barrington Erle, suggests that he stand for Parliament in the coming election.

The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ; let us call it Barchester. Were we to name Wells or Salisbury, Exeter, Hereford, or Gloucester, it might be presumed that something personal was intended; and as this tale will refer mainly to the cathedral dignitaries of the town in question, we are anxious that no personality may be suspected. Let us presume that Barchester is a quiet town in the West of England, more remarkable for the beauty of its cathedral and the antiquity of its monuments than for any commercial prosperity; that the west end of Barchester is the cathedral close, and that the aristocracy of Barchester are the bishop, dean, and canons, with their respective wives and daughters.Early in life Mr Harding found himself located at Barchester. A fine voice and a taste for sacred music had decided the position in which he was to exercise his calling, and for many years he performed the easy but not highly paid duties of a minor canon. At the age of forty a small living in the close vicinity of the town increased both his work and his income, and at the age of fifty he became precentor of the cathedral.Mr Harding had married early in life, and was the father of two daughters. The eldest, Susan, was born soon after his marriage; the other, Eleanor, not till ten years later.At the time at which we introduce him to our readers he was living as precentor at Barchester with his youngest daughter, then twenty-four years of age; having been many years a widower, and having married his eldest daughter to a son of the bishop a very short time before his installation to the office of precentor.

It will be necessary, for the purpose of my story, that I shall go back more than once from the point at which it begins, so that I may explain with the least amount of awkwardness the things as they occurred, which led up to the incidents that I am about to tell; and I may as well say that these first four chapters of the bookthough they may be thought to be the most interesting of them all by those who look to incidents for their interest in a taleare in this way only preliminary.

Before the reader is introduced to the modest country medical practitioner who is to be the chief personage of the following tale, it will be well that he should be made acquainted with some particulars as to the locality in which, and the neighbours among whom, our doctor followed his profession.There is a county in the west of England not so full of life, indeed, nor so widely spoken of as some of its manufacturing leviathan brethren in the north, but which is, nevertheless, very dear to those who know it well. Its green pastures, its waving wheat, its deep and shady andlet us adddirty lanes, its paths and stiles, its tawny-coloured, well-built rural churches, its avenues of beeches, and frequent Tudor mansions, its constant county hunt, its social graces, and the general air of clanship which pervades it, has made it to its own inhabitants a favoured land of Goshen. It is purely agricultural; agricultural in its produce, agricultural in its poor, and agricultural in its pleasures.

In the latter days of July in the year 185, a most important question was for ten days hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester, and answered every hour in various waysWho was to be the new bishop?The death of old Dr. Grantly, who had for many years filled that chair with meek authority, took place exactly as the ministry of Lord was going to give place to that of Lord . The illness of the good old man was long and lingering, and it became at last a matter of intense interest to those concerned whether the new appointment should be made by a conservative or liberal government.It was pretty well understood that the outgoing premier had made his selection and that if the question rested with him, the mitre would descend on the head of Archdeacon Grantly, the old bishops son. The archdeacon had long managed the affairs of the diocese, and for some months previous to the demise of his father rumour had confidently assigned to him the reversion of his fathers honours.