Is He Popenjoy?

By Anthony Trollope

Book Overview

Anthony Trollope ( 24 April 1815 - 6 December 1882) was an English novelist of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which revolves around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. He also wrote novels on political, social, and gender issues, and other topical matters. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he had regained the esteem of critics by the mid-20th century. Biography: Thomas Anthony Trollope, Anthony's father, was a barrister. Though a clever and well-educated man and a Fellow of New College, Oxford, he failed at the bar due to his bad temper. In addition, his ventures into farming proved unprofitable, and he lost an expected inheritance when an elderly childless uncle remarried and had children. As a son of landed gentry, he wanted his sons to be raised as gentlemen and to attend Oxford or Cambridge. Anthony Trollope suffered much misery in his boyhood owing to the disparity between the privileged background of his parents and their comparatively small means.Born in London, Anthony attended Harrow School as a free day pupil for three years from the age of seven because his father's farm, acquired for that reason, lay in that neighbourhood. After a spell at a private school at Sunbury, he followed his father and two older brothers to Winchester College, where he remained for three years. He returned to Harrow as a day-boy to reduce the cost of his education. Trollope had some very miserable experiences at these two public schools. They ranked as two of the most elite schools in England, but Trollope had no money and no friends, and was bullied a great deal. At the age of twelve, he fantasised about suicide. However, he also daydreamed, constructing elaborate imaginary worlds. In 1827, his mother Frances Trollope moved to America with Trollope's three younger siblings, to Nashoba Commune. After that failed, she opened a bazaar in Cincinnati, which proved unsuccessful. Thomas Trollope joined them for a short time before returning to the farm at Harrow, but Anthony stayed in England throughout. His mother returned in 1831 and rapidly made a name for herself as a writer, soon earning a good income. His father's affairs, however, went from bad to worse. He gave up his legal practice entirely and failed to make enough income from farming to pay rents to his landlord, Lord Northwick. In 1834, he fled to Belgium to avoid arrest for debt. The whole family moved to a house near Bruges, where they lived entirely on Frances's earnings. In Belgium, Anthony was offered a commission in an Austrian cavalry regiment. To accept it, he needed to learn French and German; he had a year in which to acquire these languages. To learn them without expense to himself and his family, he took a position as an usher (assistant master) in a school in Brussels, which position made him the tutor of thirty boys. After six weeks of this, however, he received an offer of a clerkship in the General Post Office, obtained through a family friend. He returned to London in the autumn of 1834 to take up this post.Thomas Trollope died the following year. According to Trollope, "the first seven years of my official life were neither creditable to myself nor useful to the public service." At the Post Office, he acquired a reputation for unpunctuality and insubordination. A debt of 12 to a tailor fell into the hands of a moneylender and grew to over 200; the lender regularly visited Trollope at his work to demand payments. Trollope hated his work, but saw no alternative and lived in constant fear of dismissal.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 154801964X
• ISBN13: 9781548019648
• Release Date: June 2017
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

First rate Trollope

There are some familiar Trollopean themes here: how headstrong newlyweds can turn minor spats into a serious rupture (He Knew He was Right, Kept in the Dark), how artful women can manipulate weak-willed men (The Claverlings, Mrs. Hurtle in The Way We Live Now). The central plot, summarized in the quesion that makes up the title, introduces us to one of Trollope's most lovable rascals, the Marquis of Brotherton, lovable because his rascality is so straightforward and lacking in guile. The other plot is about a sombre, priggish, not terrible bright Lord George who tries to dominate his flighty wife (Cf. Can You Forgive Her?), but she can easily run circles around him. What makes this top-notch Trollope is the wonderful gallery of fools, scoundrels and schemers -- and some people who manage to be all three. The wit andd satire is sustained throughout. Trollope hated all reformers and do-gooders, but he especially disliked feminists. Here he has great fund at the expensive of Baroness Banmann, Selina Protest and Antonia Q. Fleabody, who lecture at "The Rights of Women Institute, Established for the Relief of the Disabilities of Females", popularly known as "the disabilities".

Well, Yes, He Is Popenjoy, Sort Of...

Anthony Trollope's 47 novels contain many surprises, one of which is this delightful novel, which bears one of the most unlikely titles in all of literature. There is no better way to leave the megrims by the wayside than to immerse yourself into another time and place. Trollope was the Victorian story-teller par excellence. After having read a quarter of his vast output, I have yet to discover a clinker in the bunch. A notorious curmudgeon, the Marquess of Brotherton has quitted England for the sunny shores of Italy. News filters back to his relatives that he has married an Italian and fathered a male heir, given the courtesy title of Lord Popenjoy. His mother and siblings are in a tizzy, as they are asked to quit the premises of the ancestral home to make way for a return of the prodigal head of the family with wife and heir. It seems, however, that there is little news and much doubt about the legality of the Marquess's nuptuals; and therefore doubt as to whether his so-called son is actually the heir Popenjoy. There is a delightful fox hunt (common to many of Trollope's novels), and a stormy marriage between the Marquess's young brother and a clergyman's daughter. She dares to dance the forbidden Kappa Kappa (the Lambada of its day) with a young wastrel, and raises the protective ire of every duenna within a hundred mile radius. Look for some very amusing -- and controversial -- put-downs of the emerging feminist movement. This is a good book to start reading Trollope. His two long series -- the Barsetshire and Palliser novels -- require a long commitment. Popenjoy is just right!