The Vicar of Wrexhill

by Frances Milton Trollope

A novel from the POCKET CLASSICS series, in which a dubious clergyman gains the affections of a young widow, much to the fear and dislike of the widow's sister and cousin. From the author of DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE AMERICANS.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, 19th Century, Victorian, British Literature

358 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1837

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Axl Oswaldo · Rating 5 out of 5]

2023/50

This story makes me feel furious reflecting back on it; not only was it a very unpleasant experience—it made me want to throw up, figuratively speaking, many times, despite the fact that the book is great Victorian-wise—but also a very realistic one. I don't even know what to say about it, so, instead of typing a review, I'll be adding some notes I took while (or after) reading it.

- Religious fanaticism at its finest.

- Dear Mrs. Mowbray, how can you believe everything an outsider says to you? Where are your own beliefs?

- The way a single man may change other people's beliefs that fast is just insane. Besides, if you supposedly believe in something, why are you changing your mind so quickly afterwards?

- I see why the vicar tries to convince the children first. Sadly, they are the most vulnerable people here.

- Without this easy, natural spontaneous confidence, the family union is like a rope of sand, that will fall to pieces and disappear at the first touch of any thing that can attract and draw off its loose and unbound particles. Very well said, family union and confidence are so crucial for you to be together until the end. It would be completely necessary for someone to say this to Mrs. Mowbray.

- Very disgusting and disturbing to read about a grown-up trying to kiss a young woman in God's name. F--- you! (Sorry for my language).

- Speaking of heaven, this line was hilarious: “Oh! what a beautiful place this would be for dancing!"—but the levity was checked by Mr. Cartwright, who, happening to overhear her, replied, "My dear young lady, there is no dancing in heaven!” Such a shame, heaven sounds kind of boring without dancing (I would love to see some huapango so badly).

- When the parties fall in love, the thing is easy enough to describe: it is a shot, a thunderbolt, a whirlwind, or a storm; nothing can be more broadly evident that their hopes and their ecstasies, their agonies and their fears. In these lines the author beautifully describes how being in love is. A hurricane? A tornado? A maelstrom? Maybe I would add those too.

- If this vicar doesn't get what he deserves by the end of the book, I'll be so disappointed.

- This chapter (Chapter 40, 'The Serious Fancy Fair') was so painful to read. A bunch of perverse men sitting at the table and having a feast while coming up with some vile plans doesn't seem right. Moreover, it was boring as hell (you've lost me here, Trollope).

- Another pervert! As if we needed something like that again. F--- you too! (Language! I know, I know).

- It better be a happy ending—I just finished the penultimate chapter of Derry Girls and I'm not ready for something sad or unfair (despite the fact that I know real life might be unfair sometimes).

- I am not pretty sure whether or not I should give you 5 stars, Frances Trollope, as you didn't accept the fact that one of your characters is an atheist—I need to mull it over (to be fair, there are other aspects concerning the narrative and some characters that were not my thing either, and I get it, it was published 180 or so years ago, but that would have been a good attempt to be more open-minded nonetheless).

Dear reader, that's it. Somehow this novel made me be less religious—as if that was possible—and I genuinely believe that that was Trollope's purpose. She didn't like this fanaticism that was prevailing in England at that time, or so I read, and by reading this novel you can tell she wasn't happy about that whatsoever. Needless to say I have nothing against religion, but I'm not into it by any means. Obviously, I believe religious fanaticism is the most dangerous cancer in this world, and seeing that portrayed in The Vicar or Wrexhill made me be so angry and disgusted. If you pick this up, it's totally up to you—I just can't recommend it.

My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:

Quality of writing [4/5]
Pace [5/5]
Plot development [5/5]
Characters [5/5]
Enjoyability [3.5/5]
Insightfulness [4.5/5]
Easy of reading [5/5]
Photos/Illustrations [N/A]

Total [32/7] = 4.57

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating historical artefact, but I didn't love it was a novel.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Fanny Trollope novel and what an outrageous story! I think it's best not to know anything going into this and just buckle up for a wild and amusing and infuriating ride. Trollope writes well and the plot moves along at a brisk pace. Her characterization is something else. I wonder if her son read her novels and what he thought of them. I certainly plan to read more of them.

[Penny -Thecatladybooknook · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded down to 4.

I see that the apple (Anthony Trollope) didn't fall far from the tree (Frances Trollope)! I also need to look up Anthony's eldest brother because it seems he was a writer too. :Hmm: I had SO much fun with this book! Of the several books I am reading at one time, it is the only one that I wanted to NOT put down and longed to read when I couldn't be. Trollope is examining the corruption within the Church of England at the time. While there is a HEAVY amount of religious content in the story, it had to be there in order to see (and almost experience yourself) how easily fanatical brainwashing can happen. The new vicar abuses his position within the village to create discord within the Morbray family (as well as all over town) for his own ulterior motives.

I really grew to like several of the characters and I was just waiting to see who would wake up or how things for the Vicar would unwind. I'm afraid that is why this was rounded down to 4 stars. The ending felt a bit rushed and the book itself was going on just a wee bit long when secrets started to come to light; at that point, Trollope started telling vs showing. I could have gladly read MORE if she SHOWED us situations wrapping up.

Overall, I had such a great time with this that I wish I owned a physical!

[Catherine T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally, someone from the 1830s that is worse than Sir John Conroy!
albeit fictional

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work by Fanny (Frances) Trollope (mother of Anthony Trollope and not to be confused with his sister-in-law, Frances Eleanor Trollope, who also wrote novels) addresses a number of themes that readers of Anthony Trollope's Barchester series will find familiar. She takes as her subject the appointment of an Evangelical to the position of vicar in a small, close-knit community. Her treatment of evangelicalism and its practitioners does not leave the reader in any doubt about her sympathies. This is the biggest weakness of the book; Trollope's portrayal of the vicar (greedy, self-serving, vain, given to pious language that makes a mockery of religion, with a predilection for sexual predatoriness) is so overblown as to be unbelievable and ultimately comes off more as partisan preaching against Evangelicalism than a serious attempt to draw a believable character. (Other evangelicals come off equally badly; their discussions among themselves sound more like pirates and thieves plotting than anything else; Snidely Whiplash has more depth than these characters.) Trollope does, however, develop the personalities of the anti-evangelical characters well, though this in some ways this makes the caricatures of the evangelicals stand out even more painfully.
The plot itself is more suspenseful than I initially expected as by the halfway point I was unsure whether this was going to resolve into a conventional happy ending or whether the evil vicar would be allowed to triumph as an object lesson in the evils of evangelicalism. For those who revel in English laws of marriage and inheritance, there is a lot of business with wills, guardianships, and parental rights. The portrayal of women and their place in society is ambiguous. Both the strongest and weakest characters in the novel are women. The deluded widow who married the vicar is weak and without agency as is her youngest daughter; her older daughter and her ward, however, are independent thinkers and courageous enough to stand up the vicar, even though social and legal constraints make their efforts largely useless until a man comes to their rescue. The legal faux pas that leads to much of the unhappiness in the novel is a will giving the testator's wife complete control of all property (and is roundly denounced by one outspoken character); the relative powerlessness of women and minors in the face of unreasonable male guardians is lamented but ultimately not denounced (the problem, Trollope seems to be saying, is the abuse of the trust, not putting trust in men to begin with).

[Laura]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

[Justin Neville · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work, published in 1837, was among her Mrs Trollope's earliest novels and the first to be recalled much at all. I have read it before, many years ago, and didn't recall the plot at all.

It's very loosely based on the plot of Molière's Tartuffe and, indeed, the villain of the piece - the title character - is referred to as a Tartuffe by several of the other characters at certain points.

The book does tend to take a while to find its rhythm and to take its grip on the reader. A few too many characters, all in one little village, to begin with, and the overblown and pompous way the young female characters talk to one another is just a little bit annoying. But, bit by bit, you get drawn in and keep turning the pages, just to see quite when and how the villain is going to get his comeuppance. She handles it amazingly deftly and with some restraint.

Astonishing to me how much better this is than 'Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw', the American slavery novel she published one year previously, which was over-ambitious and over-complicated.

One can certainly imagine young Anthony Trollope reading this novel by his mum (and presumably similar novels of the era), thinking to himself: I can see myself doing something similar, but with more humour and more realistic dialogue.

[Amy (literatiloves) · Rating 4 out of 5]

You wouldn’t think a book published in 1837 about a sleazy vicar would be such a romp but it was!
RTC

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few books by Fanny Trollope published by Project Gutenberg, I really enjoyed this. Her dislike of the Calvinist wing of the Church of England is so over the top, it is great fun to read. And the deathbed scene is awesome! Despite all this, it is well written with very believable and sympathetic characters (apart from the evil ones of course). I found it fascinating to be reminded that the church was once so important that it did get caught up in party politics - as the book shows, to the detriment of all.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first foray into the novels of Frances (“Fanny”) Trollope, Anthony’s mother. One novel is not enough to go on, but this one book is certainly inferior to her son’s work, though I found it entertaining enough to stick with it.

The premise is that Charles Mowbray, senior, foolishly (we are told) leaves his entire property to his wife, Clara, who is promptly conned by the Reverend William Cartwright, the eponymous vicar, an unscrupulous Tartuffe figure in Evangelical’s clothing, determined to marry Mrs. Mowbray to get hold of her property. Mrs. Mowbray is not alone in her foolishness, as nearly the entire village of Wrexhill is duped by the canting fellow, as is the youngest Mowbray daughter, Fanny; by contrast, Charles, Jr., older daughter, Helen, and a ward, Rosalind Torrington, all benefit from wiser understanding of their established church upbringing. Conflict, of course, ensues.
Cartwright is unambiguously the villain of the novel (a bit more ambiguity and subtlety might have been preferable, actually), but Trollope withholds no scorn for the stupidity of leaving a large inheritance solely to a wife. OBVIOUSLY, no woman is capable of handling so much property on her own. This is, of course, weird coming from a woman writer who is clearly sensible enough to figure out how property should be handled, but there’s not a whisper of a suggestion that, perhaps, a husband could discuss his will with his wife before he dies, or that, even crazier, a woman could be brought up to know how to handle money. Or, and here’s a concept, there’s no questioning the laws that ordained that a woman, upon marrying, lost all control of her money to her husband. To be sure, the novel was published in 1837, but even in the 1830s there was some recognition of the injustice of British marriage laws; and Frances Trollope was a strong woman herself, who was supporting her family with her writing. I suppose she could have felt that too radical a stance would lose readers, but there’s a passage early on where she praises men who “covet in a companion” a woman like Mrs. Mowbray, a “being that wants protection.” This preference, “far from demonstrating a disposition prone to tyranny, shows a nature disposed to love and to cherish, in a manner perfectly accordant to the most perfect beau ideal of married life. But, on the other hand, there may perhaps be more of fondness than judgment in those who make such malleability of mind their first requisite in a choice so awfully important.” Yeah, both sides. Sort of.

The Vicar of Wrexhill is supposedly satirical. It does have its amusing moments (I confess that one was unintentional, when we learn that Cartwright’s hypocrisy has turned his daughter into—horrors—“an ATHEIST” (capital letters in original)), but the attack on low church doctrine and behavior struck me as heavy handed and repetitive. Cartwright becomes more and more outrageously evil as the novel progresses, past the point of plausibility. And it goes on a bit.

Moliere achieves more humor in considerably shorter form.

[Patrizia · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'autrice condivide con le grandi scrittrici inglesi del suo tempo il gusto per le descrizioni ferocemente ironiche di personaggi, eventi, 'milieu' sociali: ed è questo il pregio più evidente di questo romanzo. Condivide con molte di loro (Jane Austen è una delle poche eccezioni) anche la necessità di esprimere la propria convinta fede religiosa e di prender posizione nelle violente polemiche ecclesiastiche del tempo. E su questo versante la distanza cronologica e la diversa temperie culturale mi impediscono di esprimere un altrettanto pieno apprezzamento.

[JodiP · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't realize until earlier this year that there are more Trollope writers than just Anthony! This was the first I read by Frances and it's so good. The vicar is perfectly detestable but thankfully gets his due. It also seems that Frances focuses more on dialogue and characters rather than bigger themes of politics. However, because the evangelical angle is so prominent, I did some research. It was a big movement in the 1830s. It sounds perfectly horrible and constricting.

[leuveen · Rating 4 out of 5]

How come I didn't know that Anthony Trollope's mother was a writer? After reading this book, it's much easier to understand what (likely?) have influenced him and his writing.

This is such a great book and frankly the story rings true even now - it's like a description of all the sect leaders and so called 'gurus' and their influence on others, especially on women.

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the 19th century language. Now In understand better from where Anthony Trollope got his skills.The booknis humourous too.
The plot is unconvincing. I doubt if there was any vicar.in England who had such extreme behaviour and ideas. I think this book is unjust tot Dissenters and Calvinists
.

[Richard Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very old fashioned but that is part of its charm; gratifying melodrama from Trollope’s mom.