An Autobiography: and Other Writings

by Anthony Trollope, Nicholas Shrimpton (Editor)

This classic study of the working life of a professional writer is one of the best - and also one of the strangest - autobiographies ever written. After a miserable childhood and misspent youth, Trollope turned his life around at the age of twenty-six. By 1860 the 'hobbledehoy' had become both a senior civil servant and a best-selling novelist. He worked for the Post Office for many years and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament. Best-known for the two series ofnovels grouped loosely around the clerical and political professions, the Barsetshire and Palliser series, in his Autobiography Trollope frankly describes his writing habits. His apparent preoccupation with contracts, deadlines, and earnings, and his account of the remorseless regularity with which heproduced his daily quota of words, has divided opinion ever since.As the Introduction to this edition shows, Trollope selected and exaggerated to create his compelling narrative of initial failure and eventual success, and the inspiration that fuelled his creative imagination has too easily been overlooked. The only autobiography by a major Victorian novelist, Trollope's record offers a fascinating insight into his literary life and opinions. This edition also includes a selection of his critical writings to show how subtle and complex his approach toliterature really was.

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Victorian, British Literature, 19th Century, Memoir, Biography

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1883

About the author

Anthony 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_...

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still a big fan of Trollope's after reading his autobiography. I think it's so interesting that he was one of the only major Victorian fiction writers to attempt anything like this. The beginning third or so was more like a typical memoir as Trollope reflects on his childhood, his parents, and his early years of education and employment. He oh so briefly mentions that he got married to Rose and is then annoyingly circumspect about her. I'm glad he respected her privacy, but Trollope's so good at writing a love story...I wanted a bit more of a peek into his own. Ah well. He does go into a lot of detail about his career at the Post Office and as a novelist. I loved reading about the progression of his novels and how he slowly but surely became such a successful writer and someone who was at home with the literati, politicians, etc. of the day.

Trollope was quite a traveler! He went several times to Australia and to America, through Europe, to the West Indies, and to Egypt. A lot of this was for his job with the Post Office but he traveled for his own sake too. I find that fascinating and something I wouldn't necessarily have picked up on just from reading his novels. I also think his perspective on Ireland is so interesting. He lived there for 20-ish years, all through the early part of his adult life and Post Office career.

This edition by Oxford University Press also included some of Trollope's other writings, including short essays on Jane Austen, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Makepeace Thackeray. Trollope was a huge Thackeray fan, so I'm definitely going to have to read him (for the first time) this year in my Year of Victorian Reading. His other writings also include an essay on the development of the English novel and a meditation on walking in the wood when thinking out novel plots. This edition also includes an excellent introduction and first-class notes. I learned as much from the notes as I did from Trollope's own writing.

Highly recommend for any lover of Trollope!

[Thomas Hogglestock · Rating 3 out of 5]

This should really be 3.5 stars. It certainly has made me want to spend the summer reading and rereading his novels.

[Patrizia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leggere autobiografie o diari ottocenteschi serve in primo luogo a ridimensionare le mille idee sbagliate che una letteratura 'di maniera' tende a perpetuare in modo insulso. Prendiamo la madre di lui, ad esempio: che, nei primi decenni del secolo, dopo che il marito ha mandato in rovina la famiglia con fallimentari 'imprese economiche', si trasferisce in America con le figlie con l'idea di metter su un esercizio commerciale, scopre la sua vena di scrittrice stendendo per gioco una sorta di 'galateo americano', torna nel vecchio continente, ripara a Bruges per sfuggire ai creditori del marito e riesce a tenere da sola in piedi la baracca scrivendo senza tregua in ore rubate al sonno e alla cura dei figli tisici, vincendo l'ansia e il dolore per le varie, inevitabili morti. O la signora Trollope, a cui il grande scrittore dedica in tutto poche righe (ma cosa contenevano le "due paginette in totale" che il figlio, curatore della biografia, ha pensato bene di eliminare?) pur ammettendo, in margine a uno dei suoi primi tentativi: "No one had read it but my wife; nor, as far as I am aware, has any other friend of mine ever read a word of my writing before it was printed. She, I think, has so read almost everything, to my very great advantage in matters of taste".
Ed è stato altrettanto affascinante gettare lo sguardo su un'altra 'moglie': "George Lewes – with his wife, whom all the world knows as George Eliot – has also been and still is one of my dearest friends ... Nothing can be more charming than the unstinted admiration which he has accorded to everything that comes from the pen of the wonderful woman to whom his lot has been united".

[Barry Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting.
Though a pantser, he was a very disciplined writer who tried to think out everything visible to the horizon from a rather short crow’s nest.
It turns out his series were never intended to be series except in hindsight. He’d start out on a new novel and it was just easier to reuse characters he knew. Sometimes he had little idea where he would end up, save that nothing truly surprising was likely to come out of left field.

[David Kintore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshingly honest self-assessments by Trollope of his own novels, freely admitting that some of them aren’t very good. Interesting to see in the chapter ‘On English Novelists of the Present Day’, he rates W.M. Thackery and George Eliot more highly than Charles Dickens.

[Megan Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

was both quite boring and quite interesting at the same time….

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is many years now since I went through a Blytonesque phase of reading everything – everything! – that my local library had to offer by the 19th century British writer, Anthony Trollope, but I retain an immense fondness for his characters. These days I see them within my mind’s eye in their BBC personas because the Chronicles of Barsetshire and The Pallisers have all been rendered into TV series, but my sense of Trollope’s gentle wisdom about the fallibility of man derives from the words on the page, from all those years ago.

And now, from reading this autobiography I know how Trollope came to be wise about the fallibility of man. He had a terrible childhood and adolescence, he endured middle-class poverty and disappointed expectations, and he became a useless tearaway in his early youth. From his own idle, debt-ridden years he knew what it was to be on the wrong path, and from his administrative work in the Post Office Civil Service, he understood how minor corruption could establish itself uncorrected because people chose not to investigate irregularities. (If you’ve ever seen that episode of Lark Rise to Candleford where Lark Rise residents challenge the rule that the recipient had to pay for the telegram if they’re outside the delivery distance, then you’ll understand why Trollope was out to ensure that there was no profiteering on mail delivery on his watch).

But enchanting as it is to read Trollope’s journey towards becoming a successful novelist, An Autobiography offers more than that, as the Introduction by Nicholas Shrimpton makes clear.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/02/04/a...

[Michael Baranowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unless you're a Trollope fan, you probably shouldn't even consider reading this. What you should do is to read Trollope's 'The Way We Live Now', followed by his Barsetshire series, followed by his Palliser series. Then read this. It's difficult to go far wrong with any of Trollope's fiction - he was, for my money, the best British author of the 19th century. (Yes - much better than that ickily sentimental windbag Dickens.)

[Rachel Bustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book with the Goodreads giveaway section.
This really is a strange book, but finished in a beautiful way, I found it quite heavy reading, but then it's not my normal style. Its very fascinating the way the way its written and ideal for historical fans.