"Far otherwise is it with the progenitor of the Widow Barnaby. I scruple not to confess that with all her faults, and she has some, I love her I owe her many mirthful moments, and the deeper pleasure still of believing that she has brought mirthful moments to others also. Honestly avowing this to be the case, can any one wonder, can any one blame me, for feeling an affectionate longing at my heart to follow her upon the expedition(...)"
Frances Milton Trollope (1779 – 1863), more popularly known as Fanny Trollope, was an English novelist and writer whose first book, Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832), caused an international sensation upon its publication. Trollope’s more than 100 books include strong social novels, such as the first anti-slavery novel, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw (1836), which influenced Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe; the first industrial novel, Michael Armstrong: Factory Boy; and The Vicar of Wrexhill, which took on the corruption of the church of England; as well as two anti-Catholic novels, The Abbess and Father Eustace. Between 1839 and 1855 Trollope published her Widow Barnaby trilogy of novels, and her other travel books include Belgium and Western Germany in 1833, Paris and the Parisians in 1835, and Vienna and the Austrians. Her first and third sons, Thomas Adolphus Trollope and Anthony, also became writers; Anthony Trollope was influenced by his mother's work and became renowned for his social novels. She is sometimes confused with her daughter-in-law, the novelist Frances Eleanor Trollope.