Fanny Trollope: The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman

by Pamela Neville-Sington

A portrait of the mother of Anthony Trollope presents the life of this acclaimed author of the Victorian era through a celebration of her triumphs, a profile of her family, and a review of her works

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

416 pages, Hardcover

First published July 30, 1998

Reviews

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

an interesting look at a clever woman writer and contemporary of jane austen (and, coincidentally, the mother of anthony trollope (the way we live now, the barchester chronicles, the pallisers, and on and on). he never gave his mother the credit she deserved, actually denigrating her when he wrote about her. this book turns all of that around.

[Laura McNeal · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I was annoyed by this book. In addition to a heavy reliance on the bane of all biographies—the constant need to insert “perhaps,” “maybe,” “one imagines,” or “it seems likely” before any description of the subject’s state of mind—this book requires one to accept fictional excerpts as factual revelations. If we want to know what Fanny thought or felt about anything, and we do not have a letter in which she states what she felt or thought about that thing, we are given the thoughts of a character Fanny wrote, a character who was going through something similar at the time. And before I had quite adjusted to that, I learned that all other Trollopes who were novelists, including but not limited to the wildly prolific Anthony, would also be deposed in this way, meaning that Anthony Trollope’s universe of fictional characters are quoted whenever we need insight into the mother-son relationship or fathers and sons or sisters and brothers or husbands and wives or clergymen. Is this one hundred percent reliable? Is it entirely fair? Well, by page 200 or so, I felt that it was at least 90 percent reliable and arguably fair—that Fanny Trollope probably did write characters who spoke for her and like her, and who spoke for and like the people in her family and social circle. And I began to be quite in awe of Neville-Sington’s commitment to reading and charting and connecting Fanny’s massive ouevre (35 novels! Six travel books!) to Fanny’s life, which itself was so full of incident that merely keeping track of dates and countries of residence would require a large staff. In short, I believe that Neville-Sington has done what no one else on earth has done since about 1885, which is to read all of Fanny Trollope’s novels and take careful notes on what they said and to whom. And if, after lining up all those novels (plus all of Anthony’s, of which I have read many but not all) alongside a cradle-to-grave timeline that stretches from here to the moon, she can assert that the fictive lives came full-cloth, interchangeably, from the real ones, who am I to doubt? I am officially and completely in love with Fanny Trollope, and that is thanks to this book.

[Luke Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm vaguely familiar with the Trollope family and this is a biography firmly for fans thoroughly familiar with their work. That said, its impeccably researched and I came away full of admiration for Fanny who always rose to the occasion for her family and is a textbook example of "never too late". Not a book I'll remember forever but I'm glad I read it

[Janet Preece · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting biography of an author from the early 19th century. Lots of references to her books both fiction and factual. An interesting time to be an author with contemporaries such as Charles Dickens and Thackeray (Vanity Fair). A must for anyone who is interested in that time period or authors of 19th century.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was time to meet Anthony's mother and right after finishing Anthony Trollope's autobiography, this book couldn't have come at a better moment. A formidable and indomitable woman, Fanny Trollope was the first best-selling writer in the Trollope family. Writing as a means to support a family that was falling apart financially, Fanny stepped in as a whirlwind and took matters in her own hand, when she was already middle-aged. As a wife of a husband who was not fully functioning emotionally and financially, as a mother who lost three adult children, one teenager and one child, Fanny's spirit was no to be beaten or her character tamed. A woman who rubbed shoulders with revolutionaries, artists, a young Dickens, who travelled to the USA, who started a business in which was still considered the Wild West, Cincinatti, Fanny was a pioneer in so many ways. In my case, I couldn't help but see her through the eyes of Anthony, who she did abandon for much of his childhood and formative years, and as such, I was not what you may call a fan, as in fact many of her contemporaries who met her, were not always taken by her brashness but as for her character, you cannot impute anything to Fanny, the survivor and the inspiration for many of Anthony's formidable women characters. A bestselling author, a human-rights campaigner (anti-slavery, poor and children rights in the industrial conditions in England), a sole bread winner, a bereaved mother who picked herself up time and time again, a traveller, and an adventurer, Fanny Trollope was a formidable force of nature, and this was a biography that did justice to this worthy subject.

[O Babs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a gal, was Fanny. While Fanny is the main subject here, there is also much about Anthony, who borrowed lavishly from her work and then gave it his own voice. Both wrote to be published, to pay the bills. More power to them both.