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Linda Tressel
LINDA TRESSEL (1868) by Anthony Trollope was originally published anonymously, and was an attempt at a stylistic and thematic departure for the author. However, the voice of Trollope was unmistakable in this much more somber work, and the true authorship was ultimately unveiled.
The heroine, Linda Tressel, is pressured by her religious zealot aunt to marry an unpleasant man she finds repulsive. The story unfolds in some caricature and melodrama, yet remains an interesting study of Victorian social mores and relationships.
187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1868
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204 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Trollope
2,296 books1,767 followersAnthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day.
Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...
Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
October 16, 2024
A really strong novel - upsetting, oppressive and uncomfortable to read, but so very powerful and well done.
June 13, 2014
3.5 stars rounded up to 4
I keep coming back to Trollope because I increasingly feel he is one of the better Victorian novelists and in my opinion he writes female characters better than any other Victorian male. This was one of his more experimental novels; he published it anonymously and it was much shorter than usual. Generally Trollope takes a chapter to introduce each of the main characters in a leisurely way. Here he does not have the space to do that and as a result some of the characterisation is not as sharp as usual. Trollope described it as a romance; it certainly is not (more of a Shakespearean tragedy).
The story is set in Germany (Trollope is never quite as sharp when he sets his novels abroad). Linda Tressel is about 21 and an orphan. She lives in a house (a rather nice house) left to her by her father. She has been brought up by her aunt Madame (he mixes up his madames and frauleins a good deal) Staubach who is very religious in a hard-line Protestant Calvinist kind of way. Also living in the house is Peter Steinmarc, an old friend of her father’s who is in his early 50s and single. These are the major characters. Ludovic Valcarm is a young man who is reputed to be something of a reprobate because of his radical political ideas. There is an almost understanding between Linda and Ludovic; unstated but potential.
The deeply religious Madame Staubach sees the possibility of the relationship between Linda and Ludovic and recognises that it would be a deeply sinful match. She realises that Peter Steinmarc (a man who Linda despises)would be a sensible and steady match and would give the house a sensible master. There is pretty much the whole plot; Linda fights against the match but is pulled by duty to her elders and religion. Trollope has a genius for description of characters at times; he describes Steinmarc as honest “with a sort of second-class honesty”. Trollope is taking a swipe at the middle and upper class system of arranged marriage (as he often does) and at strict fundamentalist religion (another regular target).
Linda is an embattled character, so affected by her upbringing taht she is unable to overcome her scruples and tell everyone else where to go; it is after all her house! What Trollope also manages to do is not to make Madame Staubach totally unsympathetic. The reader is privy to her inner struggle to follow her religion and do the right thing and her innate sympathy with her niece which she feels she cannot show. The men, as often with Trollope are motivated by greed and power or by misplaced ideals (Valcarm may be a radical, but he hasn’t a clue about personal relationships).
And so the tragedy is played out. Not Trollope at his best and there are flaws; he is better when giving himself space to develop characters and ideas. However it is an interesting addition and not without merit.
I keep coming back to Trollope because I increasingly feel he is one of the better Victorian novelists and in my opinion he writes female characters better than any other Victorian male. This was one of his more experimental novels; he published it anonymously and it was much shorter than usual. Generally Trollope takes a chapter to introduce each of the main characters in a leisurely way. Here he does not have the space to do that and as a result some of the characterisation is not as sharp as usual. Trollope described it as a romance; it certainly is not (more of a Shakespearean tragedy).
The story is set in Germany (Trollope is never quite as sharp when he sets his novels abroad). Linda Tressel is about 21 and an orphan. She lives in a house (a rather nice house) left to her by her father. She has been brought up by her aunt Madame (he mixes up his madames and frauleins a good deal) Staubach who is very religious in a hard-line Protestant Calvinist kind of way. Also living in the house is Peter Steinmarc, an old friend of her father’s who is in his early 50s and single. These are the major characters. Ludovic Valcarm is a young man who is reputed to be something of a reprobate because of his radical political ideas. There is an almost understanding between Linda and Ludovic; unstated but potential.
The deeply religious Madame Staubach sees the possibility of the relationship between Linda and Ludovic and recognises that it would be a deeply sinful match. She realises that Peter Steinmarc (a man who Linda despises)would be a sensible and steady match and would give the house a sensible master. There is pretty much the whole plot; Linda fights against the match but is pulled by duty to her elders and religion. Trollope has a genius for description of characters at times; he describes Steinmarc as honest “with a sort of second-class honesty”. Trollope is taking a swipe at the middle and upper class system of arranged marriage (as he often does) and at strict fundamentalist religion (another regular target).
Linda is an embattled character, so affected by her upbringing taht she is unable to overcome her scruples and tell everyone else where to go; it is after all her house! What Trollope also manages to do is not to make Madame Staubach totally unsympathetic. The reader is privy to her inner struggle to follow her religion and do the right thing and her innate sympathy with her niece which she feels she cannot show. The men, as often with Trollope are motivated by greed and power or by misplaced ideals (Valcarm may be a radical, but he hasn’t a clue about personal relationships).
And so the tragedy is played out. Not Trollope at his best and there are flaws; he is better when giving himself space to develop characters and ideas. However it is an interesting addition and not without merit.
December 7, 2024
”The troubles and sorrows of Linda Tressel, who is the heroine of the little story now about to be told, arose from the too rigid virtue of her nearest and most loving friend,—as troubles will sometimes come from rigid virtue when rigid virtue is not accompanied by sound sense, and especially when it knows little or nothing of the softness of mercy.”
Published in 1868, as one of three novels that Anthony Trollope chose to write anonymously, the relatively short novel Linda Tressel strikes me as a companion piece of Nina Balatka, which was published in the preceding year. Both novels describe the sufferings of a young woman, whose love life is made the playing field of other people’s ambitions and moral convictions. Yet, while Nina Balatka, who is in love with a Prague Jew and is expected to marry her clumsy cousin at her pretentious aunt’s behest, has to fight anti-Jewish prejudice, but also resistance from the Jewish community, eventually prevails – in a rather deus ex machina fashion –, Linda’s fate ends with her premature death, as the first sentence of the novel already implies.
The orphan of the former town writer of Nuremberg, Linda lives in rather poor circumstances in a certain red house in the city centre, which is the only property that came down to her from her father. Since her early youth, she has been taken care of by her aunt Charlotte Staubach, a devout Anabaptist, who came from Cologne to Nuremberg and shares two things with her – first, her little income, and second, her vast stock of religious zeal. In order to make ends meet, the two women have taken up her father’s former assistant as a lodger in the red house, the elderly Peter Steinmarc, who has risen to the position of the new town writer, and who certainly knows which side his bread is buttered on. Fancying that the red house would be a welcome addition to his income, he one day proposes to aunt Staubach, but that virtuous lady turns the flattering offer down, at the same time telling Steinmarc that it would be a good thing for him to woo and finally marry her niece Linda. The widowed aunt is convinced that nothing could be more wholesome to the spiritual uplifting of a young girl than be married to an older man, such a marriage crushing romantic notions in a young lady’s heart and making her far less susceptible to the ubiquitous whisperings of devilish vice. Old Steinmarc is flattered by the notion of leading the young and beautiful maiden to the altar, but soon finds himself thwarted, and even insulted, when Linda declines his proposal and tells him in so many words that he is too old for her. From this moment on, he clings to his suit, not out of love and affection but of a desire to become the maiden’s master and punish her for her presumption against his personal vanity. To make matters worse, Linda soon finds herself attracted to young Ludovic Valcarm, Steinmarc’s nephew, a man of dubious reputation who dabbles in political radicalism and who forces his way into the house to make Linda swear not to marry his uncle, inducing her to elope with him without dircetly offering her himself as a husband.
What now follows in this utterly claustrophobic tale is Linda’s decline into despair and an illness that will finally make her waste away.
This is the principle she knows to be true, being aware of the fact that there are no earthly legal powers that can make her give herself up in marriage to a suitor who is simply loathsome to her, as he must be loathsome to the reader, but at the same time, she also knows that in her heart of hearts she will not have the determination to oppose her aunt’s wishes point-blank because of her own religious scruples, and so the only thing she can do is either to convince her aunt to drop the preposterous marriage plan or to alienate Steinmarc so much that he will withdraw his proposal. Unluckily, she gets little support from Ludovic, the help she receives from the servant Tetchen will turn out to be a disservice, as Tetchen simply cannot understand Linda’s religious qualms and her tendency to draw her own motives into doubt, and the only way out of the impending doom finally seems to be illness.
For modern readers, the novel can be quite a challenge because Trollope describes Linda’s semi-passive sufferings with an uncommon degree of intensity. What is more of a challenge, however, to us readers of today, if not downright exasperating, is probably that most of us will be simply unable to understand Linda’s inability to cast off the religious notions instilled in her by her aunt, notions that make her doubt whether, after all, she may not be a moral castaway. All the while her aunt keeps manipulating and pressuring her, the old woman is perversely convinced of acting in her niece’s best interests, simply because her brand of religion has weaned her from the human side of faith and encouraged her to embrace a belief in an inherent susceptibility to evil in a woman’s heart – a belief that Linda seems to have come to share:
It is mainly this influence of a through-and-through misanthropic, at least misogynist brand of religion that may make it hard for some readers to sympathize fully with Linda Tressel, but which at the same time make this limbo of resistance-gone-awry such a fascinating, and utterly human, reading experience.
Published in 1868, as one of three novels that Anthony Trollope chose to write anonymously, the relatively short novel Linda Tressel strikes me as a companion piece of Nina Balatka, which was published in the preceding year. Both novels describe the sufferings of a young woman, whose love life is made the playing field of other people’s ambitions and moral convictions. Yet, while Nina Balatka, who is in love with a Prague Jew and is expected to marry her clumsy cousin at her pretentious aunt’s behest, has to fight anti-Jewish prejudice, but also resistance from the Jewish community, eventually prevails – in a rather deus ex machina fashion –, Linda’s fate ends with her premature death, as the first sentence of the novel already implies.
The orphan of the former town writer of Nuremberg, Linda lives in rather poor circumstances in a certain red house in the city centre, which is the only property that came down to her from her father. Since her early youth, she has been taken care of by her aunt Charlotte Staubach, a devout Anabaptist, who came from Cologne to Nuremberg and shares two things with her – first, her little income, and second, her vast stock of religious zeal. In order to make ends meet, the two women have taken up her father’s former assistant as a lodger in the red house, the elderly Peter Steinmarc, who has risen to the position of the new town writer, and who certainly knows which side his bread is buttered on. Fancying that the red house would be a welcome addition to his income, he one day proposes to aunt Staubach, but that virtuous lady turns the flattering offer down, at the same time telling Steinmarc that it would be a good thing for him to woo and finally marry her niece Linda. The widowed aunt is convinced that nothing could be more wholesome to the spiritual uplifting of a young girl than be married to an older man, such a marriage crushing romantic notions in a young lady’s heart and making her far less susceptible to the ubiquitous whisperings of devilish vice. Old Steinmarc is flattered by the notion of leading the young and beautiful maiden to the altar, but soon finds himself thwarted, and even insulted, when Linda declines his proposal and tells him in so many words that he is too old for her. From this moment on, he clings to his suit, not out of love and affection but of a desire to become the maiden’s master and punish her for her presumption against his personal vanity. To make matters worse, Linda soon finds herself attracted to young Ludovic Valcarm, Steinmarc’s nephew, a man of dubious reputation who dabbles in political radicalism and who forces his way into the house to make Linda swear not to marry his uncle, inducing her to elope with him without dircetly offering her himself as a husband.
What now follows in this utterly claustrophobic tale is Linda’s decline into despair and an illness that will finally make her waste away.
“‘A girl need not be married unless she likes.’”
This is the principle she knows to be true, being aware of the fact that there are no earthly legal powers that can make her give herself up in marriage to a suitor who is simply loathsome to her, as he must be loathsome to the reader, but at the same time, she also knows that in her heart of hearts she will not have the determination to oppose her aunt’s wishes point-blank because of her own religious scruples, and so the only thing she can do is either to convince her aunt to drop the preposterous marriage plan or to alienate Steinmarc so much that he will withdraw his proposal. Unluckily, she gets little support from Ludovic, the help she receives from the servant Tetchen will turn out to be a disservice, as Tetchen simply cannot understand Linda’s religious qualms and her tendency to draw her own motives into doubt, and the only way out of the impending doom finally seems to be illness.
For modern readers, the novel can be quite a challenge because Trollope describes Linda’s semi-passive sufferings with an uncommon degree of intensity. What is more of a challenge, however, to us readers of today, if not downright exasperating, is probably that most of us will be simply unable to understand Linda’s inability to cast off the religious notions instilled in her by her aunt, notions that make her doubt whether, after all, she may not be a moral castaway. All the while her aunt keeps manipulating and pressuring her, the old woman is perversely convinced of acting in her niece’s best interests, simply because her brand of religion has weaned her from the human side of faith and encouraged her to embrace a belief in an inherent susceptibility to evil in a woman’s heart – a belief that Linda seems to have come to share:
”[Linda] had almost brought herself to believe that it was good for her heart to be crushed. She had quite brought herself to wish to believe it. She had within her heart no desire for open rebellion against domestic authority. The world was a dangerous, bad world, in which men were dust and women something lower than dust. She would tell herself so very often, and strive to believe herself when she did so. But, for all this, there was a yearning for something beyond her present life, for something that should be of the world, worldly. When she heard profane music she would long to dance. When she heard the girls laughing in the public gardens she would long to stay and laugh with them. Pretty ribbons and bright-coloured silks were a snare to her. When she could shake out her curly locks in the retirement of her own little chamber, she liked to feel them and to know that they were pretty.”
It is mainly this influence of a through-and-through misanthropic, at least misogynist brand of religion that may make it hard for some readers to sympathize fully with Linda Tressel, but which at the same time make this limbo of resistance-gone-awry such a fascinating, and utterly human, reading experience.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 7, 2017
I think Trollope did not write many tragedies, but this is one. Even in the works where the characters are saddened, there are humorous lines/characters to offset it. But not in Linda Tressel. Throughout his works, Trollope's characters are, for the most part, good church goers. In this he gives us a religous fanatic. Such a different Trollope we meet in Linda Tressel!
As the GR description says, Trollope published this anonymously. Could anyone mistake the classic Trollope prose? For me, it isn't just the way he puts words together, but also the way he presents his characters. He opens with:
As the GR description says, Trollope published this anonymously. Could anyone mistake the classic Trollope prose? For me, it isn't just the way he puts words together, but also the way he presents his characters. He opens with:
The troubles and sorrows of Linda Tressel, who is the heroine of the little story now about to be told, arose from the too rigid virtue of her nearest and most loving friend, -- as troubles will sometimes come from rigid virtue when rigid virtue is not accompanied by sound sense, and especially when it knows little or nothing of the softness of mercy.and later:
Had it not been that she was carried on by the conviction that things stern and hard and cruel would in the long-run be comforting to the soul, she would have given way. But she was a woman not prone to give way when she thought that the soul's welfare was concerned.I think this one is only for the Trollope fan who is interested in reading most, if not all, of his works. I appreciated it, but his trademark humor is totally absent. My 4 stars is not necessarily a recommendation, but a reflection of my continuing love of all things Trollope.
December 3, 2024
It's challenging to put ourselves in the shoes of a woman in the 1800s, particularly one with no father to see to her interests, whether that means property or love life. Poor Linda Tressel was at the mercy of a widowed, religious zealot of an aunt and an avaricious old codger who was determined to marry her in order to take ownership of her house.
I wavered in my empathy for Linda - so young, so naive, and so brainwashed. Her angst was palpable, but grew tiresome.
I'm still trying to decide if the frustration of her indecision was worth the resolution Trollope offered us. I'm leaning towards "no" which is why this earned only three stars rather than four.
This is my second date with Trollope, and while both were pleasant, he has yet to wow me.
I wavered in my empathy for Linda - so young, so naive, and so brainwashed. Her angst was palpable, but grew tiresome.
I'm still trying to decide if the frustration of her indecision was worth the resolution Trollope offered us. I'm leaning towards "no" which is why this earned only three stars rather than four.
This is my second date with Trollope, and while both were pleasant, he has yet to wow me.
December 29, 2024
This book was written by Anthony Trollope but he did not acknowledge it for a number of years before doing so. This book begins with a small girl, Linda, who is an orphan being reared by her aunt (guardian) who she adores. Her Aunt was a very religious woman and Linda is reared under her aunt's very stricken religious views. As Linda grows to be about 20 years of age, her aunt becomes very intent that Linda should marry an older man who lives in their home. Linda has some thoughts of being in love with a younger man and refuses to marry the older man. After much disagreement with her aunt and the older man, Linda leaves home with the younger man by train but is returned home when the younger man is arrested. After returning home Linda agrees to marry the older man but again leaves home to move to an aunt and uncle living in a city further away but becomes ill when she arrives there. After her aunt arrives at this home to nurse and care for her, Linda becomes more and more ill.
April 10, 2021
So irritating but engaging! I really loved this book!
April 6, 2021
About three and a half stars. Not one of Trollope’s best. It needed a subplot or two. But genuinely very sad and a great indictment on religious extremism.
March 13, 2015
No reason to dwell on the typical shortcomings found in "lesser" Trollope--the only reason to read this is if one is involved in some sort of race or personal challenge requiring the reading of all 47 of the master's novels. I'm happy to report both that this makes 47 for me AND that though this certainly falls into his lesser category, the man did manage to write 30-35 (or more) novels that are well worth reading and that this journey has been largely a delightful one (I actually lost the race about 15 years ago and am finally cleaning up the last bits that I left unread in my post-race despair).
August 28, 2020
I can't believe I found a Trollope book that I don't like! I wanted to shake the main character Linda from the beginning to the end. I wanted to do worse to her aunt. The setting was also uninteresting. I think this is my 34th Trollope novel; and I pray the 35th is much better!
January 20, 2024
Valutazione 3,5
Linda Tressel appartiene ad un tris di romanzi che Trollope scrisse dopo i suoi maggiori successi, volutamente in forma anonima, soprattutto per testare il gradimento del lettore e anche per sperimentare nuove tematiche e stili.
La storia è piuttosto drammatica e tratta della ferocia della religione, di quella religiosità punitiva che tende a reprimere ed annientare ogni desiderio di libertà e delle tragiche conseguenze che avrà soprattutto sulla vita della giovane protagonista, una figura femminile complessa, di gaskelliana o bronteana memoria, educata in maniera repressiva da una zia il cui fanatismo religioso impatterà duramente sulla sua infelice esistenza.
Sorprendentemente però Linda si rivelerà, al di là dei propri tormenti e sensi di colpa, un personaggio tenace, intransigente, risoluto nella sua decisione di non sposare l'anziano uomo impostole dalla zia, fino alle estreme conseguenze...
La narrazione e quindi la lettura, malgrado l'argomento non certo facile, risultano fluide, grazie anche ad una traduzione eccellente, e invogliano il lettore ad andare fino in fondo; i personaggi caratterizzati magnificamente, malgrado le loro idiosincrasie, timori, rimorsi, conflitti interiori non mancano di di umanità, di comprensione, di amore...
Certo è un Trollope insolito, lontano dalle sue opere di maggior successo ma non meno interessante e coinvolgente.
Linda Tressel appartiene ad un tris di romanzi che Trollope scrisse dopo i suoi maggiori successi, volutamente in forma anonima, soprattutto per testare il gradimento del lettore e anche per sperimentare nuove tematiche e stili.
La storia è piuttosto drammatica e tratta della ferocia della religione, di quella religiosità punitiva che tende a reprimere ed annientare ogni desiderio di libertà e delle tragiche conseguenze che avrà soprattutto sulla vita della giovane protagonista, una figura femminile complessa, di gaskelliana o bronteana memoria, educata in maniera repressiva da una zia il cui fanatismo religioso impatterà duramente sulla sua infelice esistenza.
Sorprendentemente però Linda si rivelerà, al di là dei propri tormenti e sensi di colpa, un personaggio tenace, intransigente, risoluto nella sua decisione di non sposare l'anziano uomo impostole dalla zia, fino alle estreme conseguenze...
La narrazione e quindi la lettura, malgrado l'argomento non certo facile, risultano fluide, grazie anche ad una traduzione eccellente, e invogliano il lettore ad andare fino in fondo; i personaggi caratterizzati magnificamente, malgrado le loro idiosincrasie, timori, rimorsi, conflitti interiori non mancano di di umanità, di comprensione, di amore...
Certo è un Trollope insolito, lontano dalle sue opere di maggior successo ma non meno interessante e coinvolgente.
March 13, 2010
Linda Tressel was part of Trollope's experiment to see if people would buy his books if he published under a pseudonym. I didn't buy this one. It has some fairy-tale elements to it, including its setting in Bavaria, specifically in Nuremberg, the city of Albrecht Durer and Hans Sachs, but it does not portend to be a happily-ever-after fairy tale. Trollope seems to me to be at his best when he stays in England among the people and groups he knows best. He makes some big mistakes here, including mixing up Calvinists and Anabaptists. I do not recommend this novel unless you are a Trollope completeist. Try one of his other forty-seven novels first. Many of them are wonderful.
May 9, 2024
"I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me."
So spoke Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice. But what happens when the person who seeks to influence you is intimately connected with you? This is the premise of Linda Tressel - a tragedy in a small circle, on a wholly individual scale. To the orphaned Linda, her religious, maiden aunt was a 'good-enough' parent for the time - strict but not ridiculous.
But one's weaknesses do usually emerge unless some unsurmountable challenge is encountered, and for the unfortunate Linda, her aunt did encounter such a challenge - in the unsuitable and avaricious suit of their tenant. The collusion of being rightful owner of the house, an aunt neither versed in romantic relationships, sensitivity, foresight, nor worldliness as the the proper worth of man and property, and Linda's having a 'moral obligation' to her aunt who raised her, with too little awareness of her own rights... all these factors put Linda in an impossible situation.
When the adults sees that a child who was always obliging suddenly became a most obdurate, 'unreasonable' creature, it is rarely the case that the problem lies within the child. Yet some adults have been so comfortable in their position as 'the authority' throughout a child's childhood - especially those who have never had cause to find themselves challenged in life, that they cannot bear to examine themselves for fault. Painful to the reader when the brief glimmerings of softness & sense that occasionally presented themselves to the aunt's mind were never seized upon. Instead, Linda, who even stated that she had no intention of marrying at all - began seeing elopement with a young man whom she merely lightly fancied as more desirable than being pushed into a marriage with a man she had no feelings for.
& even then! returning in disgrace, she had no respite.
1 star off for extreme unpleasantness to read - but I am a happy endings person. Was it good writing? my unhappiness bias cannot fairly say. I don't think you'd be too happy reading it. But then, there are few books so well suited to understanding what wonderful things the enlightenment has gradually wrought upon culture for the liberation of individuals from impossible family expectations. Something that those (in certain societies) cannot imagine happening anymore, is still happening today in others...
So spoke Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice. But what happens when the person who seeks to influence you is intimately connected with you? This is the premise of Linda Tressel - a tragedy in a small circle, on a wholly individual scale. To the orphaned Linda, her religious, maiden aunt was a 'good-enough' parent for the time - strict but not ridiculous.
But one's weaknesses do usually emerge unless some unsurmountable challenge is encountered, and for the unfortunate Linda, her aunt did encounter such a challenge - in the unsuitable and avaricious suit of their tenant. The collusion of being rightful owner of the house, an aunt neither versed in romantic relationships, sensitivity, foresight, nor worldliness as the the proper worth of man and property, and Linda's having a 'moral obligation' to her aunt who raised her, with too little awareness of her own rights... all these factors put Linda in an impossible situation.
When the adults sees that a child who was always obliging suddenly became a most obdurate, 'unreasonable' creature, it is rarely the case that the problem lies within the child. Yet some adults have been so comfortable in their position as 'the authority' throughout a child's childhood - especially those who have never had cause to find themselves challenged in life, that they cannot bear to examine themselves for fault. Painful to the reader when the brief glimmerings of softness & sense that occasionally presented themselves to the aunt's mind were never seized upon. Instead, Linda, who even stated that she had no intention of marrying at all - began seeing elopement with a young man whom she merely lightly fancied as more desirable than being pushed into a marriage with a man she had no feelings for.
& even then! returning in disgrace, she had no respite.
1 star off for extreme unpleasantness to read - but I am a happy endings person. Was it good writing? my unhappiness bias cannot fairly say. I don't think you'd be too happy reading it. But then, there are few books so well suited to understanding what wonderful things the enlightenment has gradually wrought upon culture for the liberation of individuals from impossible family expectations. Something that those (in certain societies) cannot imagine happening anymore, is still happening today in others...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2025
‘Linda Tressel’ (1868) by Anthony Trollope is a cautionary tale about the opposing pulls of fanaticism, love, stubbornness and greed for property. Trollope's women are always strong persons, but here the strength seems drawn from sources other than one’s self-confidence.
For Frau Staubach, it comes from an extreme Calvinism, which takes its cue from hellfire preachings of the Old Testament rather than the milder and more merciful precepts of the New.
For Linda, her niece who has also been her ward almost since infancy, it is the determination that she will not marry Herr Steinmarc, her aunt’s lodger, a man who is thirty years older than herself and repellent in her sight. It is also love, or what she imagines love to be, for Ludovic Valcarm, Steinmarc’s nephew. Ludovic Valcarm is a young man with very vociferous anti-establishment ideas for which he is imprisoned more than once, but always released. He has steady employment in a brewery close to Linda’s house, although his somewhat dubious reputation does not convey to his uncle or Linda's aunt that he is anything but a dissipated and scandalous youth, incapable of hard work.
The greed for property is Here Steinmarc’s besetting sin. His gaze falls on Linda as a suitable wife not because he loves her, nor because he thinks she will be a malleable wife (most of the time he seems to be devising means of ‘punishing’ her after marriage), but because Linda owns the beautiful Red House, a picturesque and very valuable prime bit of real estate in the best part of town, although she and her aunt had lived in poverty.
Against this simmering backdrop, Trollope leads Linda through a series of harrowing cruelty and religious torment as aunt and lodger demand that she unquestionably, immediately and voicelessly obey the command of God in the person of her aunt and agree to marry Steinmarc. This goes on until the girl's spirit is shattered.
‘Linda Tressel’ is a stark condemnation of religiosity without kindness, with the thought of sin undeserving of forgiveness, compassion or mercy. It is equally harsh on the burgomaster and the comfortable burghers who feel that a woman has no right to be owning property or make her wishes override those of her husband.
A very grim Trollope, with none of his usual kindly irony or sly humour. Nevertheless, an impressive bit of story-telling, where strength of character itself becomes a weapon of self-destruction.
For Frau Staubach, it comes from an extreme Calvinism, which takes its cue from hellfire preachings of the Old Testament rather than the milder and more merciful precepts of the New.
For Linda, her niece who has also been her ward almost since infancy, it is the determination that she will not marry Herr Steinmarc, her aunt’s lodger, a man who is thirty years older than herself and repellent in her sight. It is also love, or what she imagines love to be, for Ludovic Valcarm, Steinmarc’s nephew. Ludovic Valcarm is a young man with very vociferous anti-establishment ideas for which he is imprisoned more than once, but always released. He has steady employment in a brewery close to Linda’s house, although his somewhat dubious reputation does not convey to his uncle or Linda's aunt that he is anything but a dissipated and scandalous youth, incapable of hard work.
The greed for property is Here Steinmarc’s besetting sin. His gaze falls on Linda as a suitable wife not because he loves her, nor because he thinks she will be a malleable wife (most of the time he seems to be devising means of ‘punishing’ her after marriage), but because Linda owns the beautiful Red House, a picturesque and very valuable prime bit of real estate in the best part of town, although she and her aunt had lived in poverty.
Against this simmering backdrop, Trollope leads Linda through a series of harrowing cruelty and religious torment as aunt and lodger demand that she unquestionably, immediately and voicelessly obey the command of God in the person of her aunt and agree to marry Steinmarc. This goes on until the girl's spirit is shattered.
‘Linda Tressel’ is a stark condemnation of religiosity without kindness, with the thought of sin undeserving of forgiveness, compassion or mercy. It is equally harsh on the burgomaster and the comfortable burghers who feel that a woman has no right to be owning property or make her wishes override those of her husband.
A very grim Trollope, with none of his usual kindly irony or sly humour. Nevertheless, an impressive bit of story-telling, where strength of character itself becomes a weapon of self-destruction.
September 3, 2023
Without a doubt the darkest of the 33 Trollopes I have read, and also one of the shortest and most powerful. Trollope was a politically liberal and that come through in his depiction of the aunt's horrifyingly inflexible Anabaptism of Linda's aunt.
The term 'crushed beneath the wheel' is often invoked for Linda's benefit so that she should submit, and find God's grace for her wickedness. The genius here is that Linda is one of the most loving characters, and especially has a great sense of self-preservation. Even so, she never doubts the
'correctness' of her aunt's strict doctrines and even comes to see herself as a 'castaway'.
Trollope brilliantly breaks our hearts with a portrayal who not bowed down by religious intransigence, even though she seems to embrace it as well. The most heartbreaking of all the Trollopes I have read so far. Just 13 more to go
The term 'crushed beneath the wheel' is often invoked for Linda's benefit so that she should submit, and find God's grace for her wickedness. The genius here is that Linda is one of the most loving characters, and especially has a great sense of self-preservation. Even so, she never doubts the
'correctness' of her aunt's strict doctrines and even comes to see herself as a 'castaway'.
Trollope brilliantly breaks our hearts with a portrayal who not bowed down by religious intransigence, even though she seems to embrace it as well. The most heartbreaking of all the Trollopes I have read so far. Just 13 more to go
April 25, 2019
The main character, Linda Tressel, is orphaned at a young age and raised by a severe, strictly-religious aunt. They both live in a beautiful house with a lodger named Peter Steinbeck, an old man with questionable motives. After a conversation between Peter and the aunt, it's suggested that Linda marry Peter... Thus ensues a battle of wills with plenty of mental and emotional manipulation as her aunt attempts to crush all personality, all hopes and dreams, and joy right out of her niece to force her to be an obedient, subservient wife to Peter.
This is a tragedy! I was despairing alongside Linda the whole way through! The way the author wrote her inner turmoil was done exceptionally well. It left me guessing about Linda's fate right until the last pages. A very good read.
This is a tragedy! I was despairing alongside Linda the whole way through! The way the author wrote her inner turmoil was done exceptionally well. It left me guessing about Linda's fate right until the last pages. A very good read.
January 5, 2026
This is a brutal novel to get through—not because it’s bad, but because of the relentless torture that the heroine, Linda Tressel, goes through. It is almost too much for the modern reader. While this is a novel about religious intolerance and the oppression of women, there is a hint of enjoyment on Trollope’s part at torturing his heroine almost beyond endurance. This may be the delight of a master puppeteer making his creation go through the grotesque contortions he invents to keep her trapped, and it may be the delight of hammering home his point to a still religious and male-dominated society that the restrictions of both may have dire consequences. That Trollope feels Linda’s only option at the end is to die is both a testament to the world’s cruelty and his own.
February 29, 2024
In the mid-1860s, Trollope was at the height of his popularity and was beginning to wonder whether his fame was due to his name more so than to his work. He decided to test this theory by writing three short novels and publishing them anonymously, with Linda Tressel being the second of those three novels.
This book concerns a young lady, Linda Tressel, who was brought up by her fanatically religious aunt after her parents died, both of them living quietly in Nuremberg, along with their lodger, to whom they rent the upper level of the little red-gabled house Linda inherited from her deceased parents. It tells the story of the psychological troubles and sorrows that Linda endures when her aunt pressures her to marry Peter, the aforementioned lodger, who is almost three times Linda’s age and who Linda finds utterly repulsive.
Trollope’s trademark humor is totally absent from this story, and it is by far darker and grimmer than any of his other books I’ve read (aside from one of his short stories). I was so angry throughout the whole book—at the religious zealot aunt who excused her actions through her religious beliefs, at the man who schemed with the aunt to marry Linda, and at Linda herself for not realizing that her aunt was wrong and that no one could force her into a marriage she didn’t want! I’m glad I read this book, but I think that only a true Trollope fan who is anxious to read all of his works will care to tackle this one.
This book concerns a young lady, Linda Tressel, who was brought up by her fanatically religious aunt after her parents died, both of them living quietly in Nuremberg, along with their lodger, to whom they rent the upper level of the little red-gabled house Linda inherited from her deceased parents. It tells the story of the psychological troubles and sorrows that Linda endures when her aunt pressures her to marry Peter, the aforementioned lodger, who is almost three times Linda’s age and who Linda finds utterly repulsive.
Trollope’s trademark humor is totally absent from this story, and it is by far darker and grimmer than any of his other books I’ve read (aside from one of his short stories). I was so angry throughout the whole book—at the religious zealot aunt who excused her actions through her religious beliefs, at the man who schemed with the aunt to marry Linda, and at Linda herself for not realizing that her aunt was wrong and that no one could force her into a marriage she didn’t want! I’m glad I read this book, but I think that only a true Trollope fan who is anxious to read all of his works will care to tackle this one.
June 25, 2017
Classic Trollope
So terribly, terribly sad. A lovely young woman hounded to the grave by her aunt, a deeply religious woman who in her love for the child wanted to see her securely married to a man fifty plus years her senior that she loathed. And the man who wanted her for her youth and her home.
So terribly, terribly sad. A lovely young woman hounded to the grave by her aunt, a deeply religious woman who in her love for the child wanted to see her securely married to a man fifty plus years her senior that she loathed. And the man who wanted her for her youth and her home.
March 28, 2024
I love every other Trollope I've ever read, but this book was just not my favorite. He was trying something new, writing without using his name, but I think he lost sight of what he's so good at—incorporating humor with pathos. This book had little to no humor, and seemed to wander in circles. Luckily I have many other Trollopes yet to discover!
November 6, 2024
I love Anthony trollope but this book was a downer. I chose to read it after starting Nina. I thought the description of anti-Semitism in Nina was just too depressing. Little did I know that this book's portrayal of Calvinism would be even more depressing. I am now on the hunt for a trollope book with a happy ending!
May 6, 2024
I wasn't hugely taken with this. The book seemed quite formulaic and didn't go far beneath the surface. The ending felt like a huge Victorian cliché. At least the central character was treated kind of sympathetically by the author though.
June 23, 2021
Disappointing, especially for a Trollope enthusiast like me.
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April 17, 2022
Not one of his best, and a bit depressing.
September 25, 2022
Completed on 25 sep 2022
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2022
Normally I hate tragedies, but this one is so well written and gripping and heartbreaking that I couldn't put it down. It definitely isn't Trollope's normal style, but he still pulled it off.
May 16, 2025
Video Review Here - https://youtu.be/AYV485z3LnE
May 16, 2025
Classic literature,nothing special or engaging but I like the writing style and the era evocation.
September 17, 2025
One of Trollope’s shorter novels, this is rather more like Dickens in its strong commentary on societal evils: in this case the danger of rabid Christianity which allows a proponent (Linda’s aunt) to frame what she wants to happen as ‘God’s will’ and any opposition as inspired by Satan; and the misogyny which allows that a young woman should marry against her will in what comes across as societally sanctioned rape. As ever Trollope’s writing is excellent, clear and beautifully narrated.
June 14, 2008
Anthony Trollope wrote this novel under a different name as an experiment on reputation and literary reception, but I think he tried to stack the odds by writing a novel that doesn't live up to his own standards.
His humor and style flourishes in his longer novels, where he includes many side-plots and characters to round out the story. Linda Tressel suffers from the lack of supporting plots and characters, but I guess the focus on the circular motion of the painful events in Linda's life forces the reader to feel her misery.
The themes he deals with here - particularly obstinance and obedience and "castaways" - are handled in a much more interesting (although not less miserable) way in He Knew He Was Right.
His humor and style flourishes in his longer novels, where he includes many side-plots and characters to round out the story. Linda Tressel suffers from the lack of supporting plots and characters, but I guess the focus on the circular motion of the painful events in Linda's life forces the reader to feel her misery.
The themes he deals with here - particularly obstinance and obedience and "castaways" - are handled in a much more interesting (although not less miserable) way in He Knew He Was Right.
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