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Is He Popenjoy?
The year 1874 saw the conclusion in London of a much publicized court case involving an unlikely pretender to an English baronetcy. Trollope responded to the public's interest in scandal with this novel, which traces the claim of a shadowy figure to the marquisate of Brotherton. The novel is
full of sensational elements and is highly revealing of the social issues of the mid-1870s.
full of sensational elements and is highly revealing of the social issues of the mid-1870s.
655 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1878
32 people are currently reading
425 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Trollope
2,297 books1,764 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 70 reviews
June 16, 2019
A very strong and interesting Trollope novel - he is at his best writing about marriage, and the characters are so fully formed here. The ending did drag a little, but I'd still highly recommend.
May 26, 2024
Definitely a favorite standalone Trollope! I can’t wait to discuss this with the Trollope Society next month! 😍
January 1, 2017
Popenjoy shares several of the same themes Trollope covered in "He Knew He was Right" but in a much lighter way, thanks goodness, which makes for much more enjoyment. It's the story of a young couple at the beginning of heir marriage. They have their share of rough edges to file down one to the other. Lord George, as a second son, is not on the best terms with the Marquis who his himself is none of too easy to get onwith with foreign wife and its mysterious circumstances.
A delightful character, the Dean of the local parish, is Lady Mary's devoted father who is liberal with his money but expects to get full value for his largese. Of course Mary loves and respects her father but to the same or maybe higher degree she feels for her husband? I know these situations are serious but Trollope skates around them with his traditional humor so the angst level is comfortable to the reader.
February 4, 2017
Because of the page count of the default edition here, I was expecting a shorter book. Thankfully, I was not reading that edition - there must be very very tiny print in it! Recently I have been reading books originally published 100 and more years later than this, and, as much as I love Trollope, it took me longer to adapt to his style than I anticipated. Once I got over these two issues, I settled in and enjoyed exactly why I read Trollope.
Trollope is complex. Both his writing style and his characterizations are big attractions for me. It is an exception when there are not multiple overlapping story lines. This is no exception. One of the surprising story lines is that of the women's movement. Trollope always seems to me to be somewhat of a feminist, but that is mostly because he so often writes of society through the lens of his female characters. In Is He Popenjoy?, he pretty much makes fun of the women's movement, the characters being extreme caricatures.
I think this is one of his that might make for a lively in person group discussion. Is a married woman's platonic friendship with a single man improper? Can a married man's receipt of a love letter from a woman not his wife constitute infidelity? How have the rights of inheritance evolved, and when is it right to question them? The marriage vows included the wife promising to obey her husband - was it ever right to ignore this promise? Then there is the question of in-laws - good, bad and indifferent.
I liked this book more than I expected when I started. Trollope gets wordy occasionally and there were places when I wanted him to just get on with it. Still, it crosses the threshold of 5 stars, though it probably sits toward the bottom of that group.
Trollope is complex. Both his writing style and his characterizations are big attractions for me. It is an exception when there are not multiple overlapping story lines. This is no exception. One of the surprising story lines is that of the women's movement. Trollope always seems to me to be somewhat of a feminist, but that is mostly because he so often writes of society through the lens of his female characters. In Is He Popenjoy?, he pretty much makes fun of the women's movement, the characters being extreme caricatures.
I think this is one of his that might make for a lively in person group discussion. Is a married woman's platonic friendship with a single man improper? Can a married man's receipt of a love letter from a woman not his wife constitute infidelity? How have the rights of inheritance evolved, and when is it right to question them? The marriage vows included the wife promising to obey her husband - was it ever right to ignore this promise? Then there is the question of in-laws - good, bad and indifferent.
I liked this book more than I expected when I started. Trollope gets wordy occasionally and there were places when I wanted him to just get on with it. Still, it crosses the threshold of 5 stars, though it probably sits toward the bottom of that group.
March 7, 2022
First a story: A 19-year-old girl was in love with her boyfriend. Within five months he would be her fiancé; in a year, her husband. They were at a wedding of a mutual friend. The boyfriend was a groomsman, the girl a musician.
While the guys were bachelor-partying, the girl's task was to practice music. There she met another musician and the two instantly clicked. After rehearsing the wedding music, they went on to put on an impromptu concert for themselves and the three others in the room. They laughed as the bar kept raising. She modulated into a new key, he answered with a change in tempo and rhythm. They carried on a conversation through their music, call and response. It was uncanny.
When it was all over, he said, "Can I give you a ride on my motorcycle?" That sounded fun, and something new. With shorts and flip flops on but no helmet, silly girl hopped on board and put her hands around the musician's waist. He looked back and said, "Don't touch the exhaust pipe or you'll get burned. And lean *into* the curves." Off they went, up a curvy road that took them to an overlook. They were silent, looking over the city, snow-capped mountains in the distance, feeling the tension of attraction.
Eventually they breezed back to the wedding venue, where the boyfriend was waiting. He was not cheerful. The two skipped the rehearsal dinner to work out this problem of riding off on motorcycles with another guy.
That was the day I learned that saying "yes" to one also means saying "no" to all the others.
If Trollope's characters, Lady Mary and the Lord George, could have learned this lesson early in their marriage, much grief would have been saved.
While the guys were bachelor-partying, the girl's task was to practice music. There she met another musician and the two instantly clicked. After rehearsing the wedding music, they went on to put on an impromptu concert for themselves and the three others in the room. They laughed as the bar kept raising. She modulated into a new key, he answered with a change in tempo and rhythm. They carried on a conversation through their music, call and response. It was uncanny.
When it was all over, he said, "Can I give you a ride on my motorcycle?" That sounded fun, and something new. With shorts and flip flops on but no helmet, silly girl hopped on board and put her hands around the musician's waist. He looked back and said, "Don't touch the exhaust pipe or you'll get burned. And lean *into* the curves." Off they went, up a curvy road that took them to an overlook. They were silent, looking over the city, snow-capped mountains in the distance, feeling the tension of attraction.
Eventually they breezed back to the wedding venue, where the boyfriend was waiting. He was not cheerful. The two skipped the rehearsal dinner to work out this problem of riding off on motorcycles with another guy.
That was the day I learned that saying "yes" to one also means saying "no" to all the others.
If Trollope's characters, Lady Mary and the Lord George, could have learned this lesson early in their marriage, much grief would have been saved.
July 15, 2025
What a shame. Trollope raises many issues regarding the relationship of the sexes as well as money and inheritance and he creates intriguing potential plot twists, only to abandon them all. Even the titular question is never resolved. Moreover, ultimately none of the characters is particularly likable. Among the annoying strains are the mockery of the feminist movement, the domineering husband who is essentially validated, and the prelate who rejoices in the death of a miserable two-year old. By the end of the book, pretty much nothing has happened although most are better off. The saving grace is Trollope’s prose, but this is still barely three stars; it has the feel of something he ground out doing his daily stint without caring.
April 30, 2015
When a Book Outstays Its Welcome
It’s a ghastly thing to say of a book, I know, at least of a Victorian novel because anyone who takes up one of those usually knows that they were written for readers who had more patience and were less dependent on one-murder-or-some-other-kind-of-gross-thrill-every-three-pages, and then I am also an avid reader of Trollope. And yet, for all the potential of the novel and the readiness with which I read the first two thirds of it – I wanted to know if the nasty Marquis had something to hide or not and whether his son was the legitimate heir, and I did take an interest in Mary’s conjugal difficulties and in whether she would be able to come to terms with the strangely prim Lord George, and I also liked the worldly Dean because he always had an open ear and an open heart for his daughter –, the last third proved a challenge of patience to me and it also shows Trollope’s limitations as a writer.
I think that Is He Popenjoy? clearly suffers from Trollope’s attitude to the process of novel writing, i.e. that he considered it as a mere job of work in the first place, that he sat down some hours before breakfast and his actual work in order to write so-and-so-many words per day and that he used to look down his nose at writers who were struggling for inspiration, form and the right word in the right place. For Trollope, inspiration was just a sham, and it was definitely his talent that enabled him to keep up that half-ironic, half-paternal, all in all so elegant, authorial voice that made most of his writing so characteristic and enjoyable. At times, however, you can see that writing was a routine for him, and I think the meandering ending of Is He Popenjoy? when he suddenly focuses on minor characters (Lord Giblet and Miss Patmore Green), thus drawling on and on without any genuine point and postponing the development of the major story, is one instance where Trollope’s limitations show. I was glad when I finally reached the ending of that story.
Nevertheless, the novel has three wonderful female characters – the inexperienced Mary Lovelace, who learns to hold her ground in her marriage, the underhanded and deceitful Mrs. Adelaide Houghton, and the high-principled Lady Sarah – who make up for the grossly crude anti-feminist caricatures that haunt the pages of the novel and who, once again, prove Trollope’s knack for populating his stories with life-like women. As I said, there is also the Dean, Mary’s father, who may be a bit too ambitious but whose warm-heartedness made me read on – as did most of the conflicts dealt with in the novel.
We also get some nice examples of Trollope’s caustic wit, such as
Had Trollope decided to get rid of the odd sub-plot and minor character, this might have been a thoroughly entertaining and well-balanced novel. As matters stand, Is He Popenjoy? is not really a failure but still a somewhat misshapen, because rather lengthy book, which makes me remember a nice little poem by Wilhelm Busch – namely this one:
It’s a ghastly thing to say of a book, I know, at least of a Victorian novel because anyone who takes up one of those usually knows that they were written for readers who had more patience and were less dependent on one-murder-or-some-other-kind-of-gross-thrill-every-three-pages, and then I am also an avid reader of Trollope. And yet, for all the potential of the novel and the readiness with which I read the first two thirds of it – I wanted to know if the nasty Marquis had something to hide or not and whether his son was the legitimate heir, and I did take an interest in Mary’s conjugal difficulties and in whether she would be able to come to terms with the strangely prim Lord George, and I also liked the worldly Dean because he always had an open ear and an open heart for his daughter –, the last third proved a challenge of patience to me and it also shows Trollope’s limitations as a writer.
I think that Is He Popenjoy? clearly suffers from Trollope’s attitude to the process of novel writing, i.e. that he considered it as a mere job of work in the first place, that he sat down some hours before breakfast and his actual work in order to write so-and-so-many words per day and that he used to look down his nose at writers who were struggling for inspiration, form and the right word in the right place. For Trollope, inspiration was just a sham, and it was definitely his talent that enabled him to keep up that half-ironic, half-paternal, all in all so elegant, authorial voice that made most of his writing so characteristic and enjoyable. At times, however, you can see that writing was a routine for him, and I think the meandering ending of Is He Popenjoy? when he suddenly focuses on minor characters (Lord Giblet and Miss Patmore Green), thus drawling on and on without any genuine point and postponing the development of the major story, is one instance where Trollope’s limitations show. I was glad when I finally reached the ending of that story.
Nevertheless, the novel has three wonderful female characters – the inexperienced Mary Lovelace, who learns to hold her ground in her marriage, the underhanded and deceitful Mrs. Adelaide Houghton, and the high-principled Lady Sarah – who make up for the grossly crude anti-feminist caricatures that haunt the pages of the novel and who, once again, prove Trollope’s knack for populating his stories with life-like women. As I said, there is also the Dean, Mary’s father, who may be a bit too ambitious but whose warm-heartedness made me read on – as did most of the conflicts dealt with in the novel.
We also get some nice examples of Trollope’s caustic wit, such as
”He had never given her an opening for the mildest finding of fault. She, no doubt, was young, and practice had not come to her.”
”It is not what one suffers that kills one, but what one knows that other people see that one suffers.”
Had Trollope decided to get rid of the odd sub-plot and minor character, this might have been a thoroughly entertaining and well-balanced novel. As matters stand, Is He Popenjoy? is not really a failure but still a somewhat misshapen, because rather lengthy book, which makes me remember a nice little poem by Wilhelm Busch – namely this one:
Es ist halt schön,
Wenn wir die Freunde kommen sehen.
Schön ist es ferner, wenn sie bleiben
Und sich mit uns die Zeit vertreiben.
Doch wenn sie schließlich wieder gehen,
Ist’s auch recht schön.
August 21, 2013
Is He Popenjoy? is a work by one of my all-time favorite authors, Victorian writer Anthony Trollope. The plot revolves around a marriage-actually, several marriages-and a disputed heir. Will Mary find happiness with Lord George? Is the Marquis' son really legitimate? Will a scheming ex-love of Lord G succeed in destroying his marriage to Mary? Are the three sisters as stuffy as they appear?
As is often the case, however, the real pleasure in the book is the tight writing and biting humor. Despite being written more than a century ago, the people still seem as familiar as our neighbors or ourselves and the machinations of humans with each other as applicable today as then.
I found the book funny, even hilarious at points. As always, Trollope's prose manages to be (for me) both soothing and sharp. If you've read Trollope and enjoyed him, you'll enjoy this.
And if you haven't yet read any Trollope, well...do so!
As is often the case, however, the real pleasure in the book is the tight writing and biting humor. Despite being written more than a century ago, the people still seem as familiar as our neighbors or ourselves and the machinations of humans with each other as applicable today as then.
I found the book funny, even hilarious at points. As always, Trollope's prose manages to be (for me) both soothing and sharp. If you've read Trollope and enjoyed him, you'll enjoy this.
And if you haven't yet read any Trollope, well...do so!
April 25, 2012
This is not only one of Anthony Trollope's sunniest novels, it is probably the best one of his books to start with if you have never read any of his works before. On one hand, Is He Popenjoy? is the tale of a nasty marquis who mistreats his family, hates England, and marries an Italian woman of dubious antecedents by whom he -- supposedly -- has an heir, who bears the courtesy title of Lord Popenjoy.
If the Italian claimant to the title is indeed Popenjoy, that prevents the marquis's brother, Lord George Germain, from inheriting. Lord George is married to a beautiful young woman named Mary Lovelace, daughter of the local dean of the cathedral. Most of the story tells of their travails as a young married couple, especially where it involves mutual trust.
There are some wonderful characterizations in the novel and a devastating satire on 19th century British feminism. Even as a re-read, I enjoyed the book as much as the first time I read it seven or eight years ago.
This one's a keeper.
If the Italian claimant to the title is indeed Popenjoy, that prevents the marquis's brother, Lord George Germain, from inheriting. Lord George is married to a beautiful young woman named Mary Lovelace, daughter of the local dean of the cathedral. Most of the story tells of their travails as a young married couple, especially where it involves mutual trust.
There are some wonderful characterizations in the novel and a devastating satire on 19th century British feminism. Even as a re-read, I enjoyed the book as much as the first time I read it seven or eight years ago.
This one's a keeper.
July 3, 2022
Before getting too much into it, I have to agree with many reviewers who feel that Is He Popenjoy? is a poor choice as your introduction to the otherwise long shelf of Trollope’s long Victorian novels. To that I will add that it is not my favorite. Allowing that Victorian novels were written when padding was understood, in part because so many were paid by the word or contracted to fill so many serialized newspaper columns; this is an overly long book. Padding should not be this obvious and much of the end of the book was at once too convenient in the wrapping up of issues and too long in their page count. On reflection very few plot lines are wrapped up as they are cut off, un or incompletely concluded. Issues sort of go away with flourish rather than a conclusion. Money some how appears and inconvenient alternatives play out conveniently.
Comments about the needlessly high page count aside, what follows will go into a number of paragraphs because the book raises a number of issues, even if it does not bring many, any<?> of them to a thoughtful conclusion. While I am making administrative comments, I am reading this book in an edition of Trollope’s collected works. It is too worthy of separate mention and I do so here.
Trollope manages things that, for example Jane Austin could not. A married couple has a baby. Does so in a very visible way, despite the fact that a reader has no reason to know that the married couple ever disported themselves with anyone, including each other. In fact, it is possible to read Is He Popenjoy? and conclude that No Sex Please, We’re British is such a rule that a married woman can find her self in an interesting condition without having to do more than hold hands and if strategically useful, embrace or kiss her husband.
Very much like Trollope in other novels, he is almost systematic in creating couples who between them explore a number of related issues from various points of view. As always, the issue of marriage among the Victorian gentry is a matter of money, rank and if then possible, romantic preferences. Money is suspicious if earned but very critical if one gets it by inherited title
From the beginning we have couples who may have feelings for each other, but marry others. Doing so because of money is paramount over sentiment. At that sentiment may not be that deep or based upon much more than happenstance of proximity. Having married off several of his principal players in a few initial chapters he sets them up to be compromised, or compromising.
Our protagonist couple, are Lord George, a second son and therefor chronically short of money, his well to do, if young and initially unworldly wife, Lady Mary. Each will find themselves in situations that are socially compromising, but neither has had, “inappropriate sexual relations” with the socially inappropriate other. Much will be said about how this is harder on the woman because she is automatically held to a higher standard. Trollope will make it clear that it is only in the stogy, unimaginative mind of Lord George that the old Caesar’s Wife standard of being guilty-if only by appearances-has any real effect in their larger circle.
Lady Mary, knowing herself to be innocent of anything substantial, refuses even the notion that she requires forgiveness and freely extends the same attitude toward her husband. The reader is very certain that in his case he lacks the imagination and the sensuality to step out on his wife, and she is very good about never letting affection for a friend ever turn into something unthinkable. Excuse a modern reader if they suspect that there may be a future point where either may decide that the marriage bond is permeable given the possible long-term effects on a couple that may only have obligatory feelings of love.
Around this couple we have an adventuress, who is prepared to be very dramatic about how much she loves his lordship, while admitting to herself that hers is a pretend affection. If successful she will be in the situation of a dog that has chased then caught the car. We also have a man with a very well known, and famous for his reputation, as a love them and leave them kind of person. As such he mirrors the adventuress. We have other people present for the purpose of promoting these two or talking scandal about them. Yet another couple or two are in the throes of the problem of marriage for love or money and among them Trollope can work out various sides to the forever struggle of marriage as a commercial enterprise verses a decision of the heart.
Stepping back before meeting the titular issue in the novel is something about the novel itself. For about half of the novel, Trollope is quite funny. Most narrations will include asides or observations that tell us that none of this is that serious. At one point a character asks another for a sacrifice, then asks them to make it with a smile. Then, the narrator observes that it is frequently the case that a person not only wants another to sacrifice, but they must enjoy making it.
Then enter the drama. The first born, older brother has been a threatening presence from off stage. He had left the region of his patrimony many years earlier. It has slowly come to us that he is married to a titled Italian woman and father of a son. If this is all true, Lord George will never inherit title, family estates, nor the money that floes from family rented lands. Being a proper English gentleman, Lord George is not capable of any form of useful employment. His wife is well funded by her father, but he, the father, aka The Dean is a subplot all to himself. Sufficient for now, The Dean is moneyed, and not noble.
Enter the older brother, the Marquis of Brotherton, and suite. Of this group none but Brotherton speaks English and it follows that all are suspicious. In passing let us note that Trollope, always fond of ironic and telltale names, rather over does it with obvious and plot aligned names. Brotherton is a brother who is a ton of bother
The Italian, titled wife is suspicious because anyone who reads Victorian novels knows that foreign born wives, especially if holders of foreign titles, and having been married outside of England and OMG darkly complected are inherently suspicious. Trollope will make much of this. The heir apparent was so poorly introduced into life as to do so without proper English witnesses and altogether there is much that any Victorian reader would take to be cause to question the legitimacy of the child and its claim to title and BTW, its income. Here it will be added that all of this part of the plot in Is He? was ‘ripped from the headlines” of a then well-known scandal and numerous public court proceedings.
While it is true that the Marquis is, on his best day an insufferable bore and worse; he is exactly right to resent that his marriage and the legitimacy of his son is an open question. The more so given the rumors attending both his younger brother and his new bride are matters not to be questioned.
Part of what I liked about this book is that there are no heroic figures. Everyone has weaknesses and reasons to be thought of as less than the best examples of exemplary personalities. It is a stretch to suggest that Trollope has anticipated naturalism, but his entire cast is more like real people than the typical good/bad characters of so many other Victorian Novels. That said many of them will lose their roughest edges for reasons more design to promote a happy ending than make sense.
And now to address the presumption of misogyny. Defined as “The hatred of women.”. Nothing in this book can be cited as proof that Trollope hated women. In Is He?, as well as other books his women are often smarter, better thinkers and in numerous ways superior to many of his male characters. I suspect he knew that many if not most of his readers were women and private feeling aside, he was not going to insult a significant portion of his income. To a person with proof from outside this book I will defer, but nothing in this book is proof.
A subplot to Is He Popenjoy? is a group that represents the earliest of what will become the feminist movement. In 2022 it is understood that that topic and all that pertains to it is sacred beyond any allowance for humor. To make any joke is to stain the humorist and maybe render them forever irredeemable. Trollope plays these proto feminists for fun. OMG! Again, he is writing fiction, making the mistake of playing to a 19th century audience and not giving a thought to the 21st century. Shame all Shame!
There is another possible explanation. What makes the feminists a joke is that they make themselves present in a social order that despises any topic beyond the propriety and honor of that class. Nowhere else is there any serious topic of conversation. Fox hunts yes, whose new lover/mistress is acceptable in making up a party, allowed topics. Yet here are these upstart ‘spinsters’ forcing themselves into polite society. This cannot be and played as a joke, the social order maintains its proper politesse. Now, at whose expense is the joke?
There may be ample evidence that Trollope was by free choice, and personal conviction more committed to the power of the male than was typical of his age and social class. To that evidence I will accept a documented case. Reading only this book, I will not
Comments about the needlessly high page count aside, what follows will go into a number of paragraphs because the book raises a number of issues, even if it does not bring many, any<?> of them to a thoughtful conclusion. While I am making administrative comments, I am reading this book in an edition of Trollope’s collected works. It is too worthy of separate mention and I do so here.
Trollope manages things that, for example Jane Austin could not. A married couple has a baby. Does so in a very visible way, despite the fact that a reader has no reason to know that the married couple ever disported themselves with anyone, including each other. In fact, it is possible to read Is He Popenjoy? and conclude that No Sex Please, We’re British is such a rule that a married woman can find her self in an interesting condition without having to do more than hold hands and if strategically useful, embrace or kiss her husband.
Very much like Trollope in other novels, he is almost systematic in creating couples who between them explore a number of related issues from various points of view. As always, the issue of marriage among the Victorian gentry is a matter of money, rank and if then possible, romantic preferences. Money is suspicious if earned but very critical if one gets it by inherited title
From the beginning we have couples who may have feelings for each other, but marry others. Doing so because of money is paramount over sentiment. At that sentiment may not be that deep or based upon much more than happenstance of proximity. Having married off several of his principal players in a few initial chapters he sets them up to be compromised, or compromising.
Our protagonist couple, are Lord George, a second son and therefor chronically short of money, his well to do, if young and initially unworldly wife, Lady Mary. Each will find themselves in situations that are socially compromising, but neither has had, “inappropriate sexual relations” with the socially inappropriate other. Much will be said about how this is harder on the woman because she is automatically held to a higher standard. Trollope will make it clear that it is only in the stogy, unimaginative mind of Lord George that the old Caesar’s Wife standard of being guilty-if only by appearances-has any real effect in their larger circle.
Lady Mary, knowing herself to be innocent of anything substantial, refuses even the notion that she requires forgiveness and freely extends the same attitude toward her husband. The reader is very certain that in his case he lacks the imagination and the sensuality to step out on his wife, and she is very good about never letting affection for a friend ever turn into something unthinkable. Excuse a modern reader if they suspect that there may be a future point where either may decide that the marriage bond is permeable given the possible long-term effects on a couple that may only have obligatory feelings of love.
Around this couple we have an adventuress, who is prepared to be very dramatic about how much she loves his lordship, while admitting to herself that hers is a pretend affection. If successful she will be in the situation of a dog that has chased then caught the car. We also have a man with a very well known, and famous for his reputation, as a love them and leave them kind of person. As such he mirrors the adventuress. We have other people present for the purpose of promoting these two or talking scandal about them. Yet another couple or two are in the throes of the problem of marriage for love or money and among them Trollope can work out various sides to the forever struggle of marriage as a commercial enterprise verses a decision of the heart.
Stepping back before meeting the titular issue in the novel is something about the novel itself. For about half of the novel, Trollope is quite funny. Most narrations will include asides or observations that tell us that none of this is that serious. At one point a character asks another for a sacrifice, then asks them to make it with a smile. Then, the narrator observes that it is frequently the case that a person not only wants another to sacrifice, but they must enjoy making it.
Then enter the drama. The first born, older brother has been a threatening presence from off stage. He had left the region of his patrimony many years earlier. It has slowly come to us that he is married to a titled Italian woman and father of a son. If this is all true, Lord George will never inherit title, family estates, nor the money that floes from family rented lands. Being a proper English gentleman, Lord George is not capable of any form of useful employment. His wife is well funded by her father, but he, the father, aka The Dean is a subplot all to himself. Sufficient for now, The Dean is moneyed, and not noble.
Enter the older brother, the Marquis of Brotherton, and suite. Of this group none but Brotherton speaks English and it follows that all are suspicious. In passing let us note that Trollope, always fond of ironic and telltale names, rather over does it with obvious and plot aligned names. Brotherton is a brother who is a ton of bother
The Italian, titled wife is suspicious because anyone who reads Victorian novels knows that foreign born wives, especially if holders of foreign titles, and having been married outside of England and OMG darkly complected are inherently suspicious. Trollope will make much of this. The heir apparent was so poorly introduced into life as to do so without proper English witnesses and altogether there is much that any Victorian reader would take to be cause to question the legitimacy of the child and its claim to title and BTW, its income. Here it will be added that all of this part of the plot in Is He? was ‘ripped from the headlines” of a then well-known scandal and numerous public court proceedings.
While it is true that the Marquis is, on his best day an insufferable bore and worse; he is exactly right to resent that his marriage and the legitimacy of his son is an open question. The more so given the rumors attending both his younger brother and his new bride are matters not to be questioned.
Part of what I liked about this book is that there are no heroic figures. Everyone has weaknesses and reasons to be thought of as less than the best examples of exemplary personalities. It is a stretch to suggest that Trollope has anticipated naturalism, but his entire cast is more like real people than the typical good/bad characters of so many other Victorian Novels. That said many of them will lose their roughest edges for reasons more design to promote a happy ending than make sense.
And now to address the presumption of misogyny. Defined as “The hatred of women.”. Nothing in this book can be cited as proof that Trollope hated women. In Is He?, as well as other books his women are often smarter, better thinkers and in numerous ways superior to many of his male characters. I suspect he knew that many if not most of his readers were women and private feeling aside, he was not going to insult a significant portion of his income. To a person with proof from outside this book I will defer, but nothing in this book is proof.
A subplot to Is He Popenjoy? is a group that represents the earliest of what will become the feminist movement. In 2022 it is understood that that topic and all that pertains to it is sacred beyond any allowance for humor. To make any joke is to stain the humorist and maybe render them forever irredeemable. Trollope plays these proto feminists for fun. OMG! Again, he is writing fiction, making the mistake of playing to a 19th century audience and not giving a thought to the 21st century. Shame all Shame!
There is another possible explanation. What makes the feminists a joke is that they make themselves present in a social order that despises any topic beyond the propriety and honor of that class. Nowhere else is there any serious topic of conversation. Fox hunts yes, whose new lover/mistress is acceptable in making up a party, allowed topics. Yet here are these upstart ‘spinsters’ forcing themselves into polite society. This cannot be and played as a joke, the social order maintains its proper politesse. Now, at whose expense is the joke?
There may be ample evidence that Trollope was by free choice, and personal conviction more committed to the power of the male than was typical of his age and social class. To that evidence I will accept a documented case. Reading only this book, I will not
June 9, 2025
The with-editors-like-this-who-needs-enemies? introduction to my edition pretty much said that Anthony Trollope was obtrusively crotchety and old and socially reactionary when he wrote this, and on top of that, the novel is self-derivative and generally mediocre.
I quite liked it, actually.
I picked up Is He Popenjoy? because I was intrigued by Trollope’s sensational, ripped-from-the-Victorian-headlines novel about a lordly heir of dubious identity.
Well, Lord Popenjoy, Lord Schmopenjoy. It’s the Victorian gender politics that grabbed me here. And how these gender politics interact with class hierarchy. And though it’s not the world’s most tightly plotted novel, or even the world’s most tightly plotted Trollope novel (of which there are, to put it mildly, many), I found the themes fascinating.
I’ll be the first to admit that I've been a tad over-into The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination lately, but Victorian women did write things, with various degrees of tortuousness, that explored gender stereotypes, roles and ideas. And there are literally zillions of books by Victorian men that incorporate troubling gender stuff, largely unexamined. But this book is a rare bird: a book by a Victorian male that doesn’t take the stereotypes in stride, but instead holds them up and inspects them like a superannuated Antiques Roadshow appraiser.
So what often-unexamined ideas does Trollope examine? Well, the Good Women (virgins, angels, doting mammas)/Bad Women (fallen women, harpies and socially problematic women of all kinds) dichotomy, for one. He even explicitly references, and plays upon, the The Angel In The House, that poetic paean to “proper” Victorian married love that the authors of Madwoman take as a central image. He scrutinizes the child-child to wife-child transition. He looks at that gendered double standard for behavior. And he takes us on a field trip to the 19th-century Women’s Rights movement for a look at the ladies who are thinking about it all too.
But I don’t want give you the impression that behind that rippling wall of Trollopean beard lurked a crusading feminist-type. Because, just no. At times the book comes off as pretty misogynistic, which usually leads me to make obnoxiously audible retching sounds.
Weirdly, though, this one turns out to be more thoughtful and compassionate about this sort of thing than, for instance, much of Dickens. It’s like Trollope’s ideas are 90% fixed to those that dominated his time, but the other 10% roam to a freer, more compassionate place. They might not put up their feet and stay there awhile, but at least the story makes that place conceivable.
Here’s some of the 90%: at one point, which makes total sense at the time, unfortunately, one character wonders whether an impending child will be “a Popenjoy” or “a disability” (Guess which one’s the girl!). And then there’s Trollope’s ruthless hatchet job on the motives, manners and, most especially, appearances of those in the Women’s Rights movement:
Women with bank accounts. The horror!!
But then he makes you go and think about “real tyranny” that can be experienced by women under their men’s command. Or the limited options available to most women due to class and gender.
Any audible retching sounds were also suppressed by the fact that this book is chock-full of questions: “What should I do?” “Is He Popenjoy?” “ ’What Matter if She Does?’ ” The prevalent queries make the social world of the book seem more mutable than it might otherwise appear from the plot.
And Trollope tempers his ossification on other topics, too. There’s dollop of aggressive nationalism, but then he inserts: “The national conviction that an Englishman could thrash three foreigners, and if necessary, eat them, was strong with him.” (2.39). The novel engages with that troublesome modernity in a similarly ambiguous way.
Compared to the other two Trollope novels I’ve read, The Warden and Barchester Towers, this novel’s structure needle does get stuck in the record at times. Plus, some characters are distinctly 2-D, like the requisite oily, scheming clergyman who reads like an oily, scheming after thought. Also, six thousand million characters into his novelistic career, he may have been running a wee bit short of inventiveness when it came to evocative names, e.g., the Women’s Rights-ers Baroness Banmann (It’s like she wants to BAN the MEN…get it?? Trollope, you clever minx.) and Lady Selena Protest (It’s like she wants to PROTEST against the men..get it?? Trollope, you…oh, never mind.) .
So let me sum up: if you’re going to read one, or just a few, Victorian chunksters, this probably shouldn’t be the one. But if you’re up to your shirred neckline in Trollope, Dickens, Gaskell, Thackery, et al., this one is an unusual and meta-educational addition to the bunch.
This book pairs well with Anything having to do with gender in Victorian England. Like, oh, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Trollope’s The Warden, gives you a typical Angel for comparison. I’m sure it would pair well with other 93.5% of Trollope novels I have yet to read; it did make me want to head straight to the all-you-can-eat Trollope-novel buffet.
I quite liked it, actually.
I picked up Is He Popenjoy? because I was intrigued by Trollope’s sensational, ripped-from-the-Victorian-headlines novel about a lordly heir of dubious identity.
Well, Lord Popenjoy, Lord Schmopenjoy. It’s the Victorian gender politics that grabbed me here. And how these gender politics interact with class hierarchy. And though it’s not the world’s most tightly plotted novel, or even the world’s most tightly plotted Trollope novel (of which there are, to put it mildly, many), I found the themes fascinating.
I’ll be the first to admit that I've been a tad over-into The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination lately, but Victorian women did write things, with various degrees of tortuousness, that explored gender stereotypes, roles and ideas. And there are literally zillions of books by Victorian men that incorporate troubling gender stuff, largely unexamined. But this book is a rare bird: a book by a Victorian male that doesn’t take the stereotypes in stride, but instead holds them up and inspects them like a superannuated Antiques Roadshow appraiser.
So what often-unexamined ideas does Trollope examine? Well, the Good Women (virgins, angels, doting mammas)/Bad Women (fallen women, harpies and socially problematic women of all kinds) dichotomy, for one. He even explicitly references, and plays upon, the The Angel In The House, that poetic paean to “proper” Victorian married love that the authors of Madwoman take as a central image. He scrutinizes the child-child to wife-child transition. He looks at that gendered double standard for behavior. And he takes us on a field trip to the 19th-century Women’s Rights movement for a look at the ladies who are thinking about it all too.
But I don’t want give you the impression that behind that rippling wall of Trollopean beard lurked a crusading feminist-type. Because, just no. At times the book comes off as pretty misogynistic, which usually leads me to make obnoxiously audible retching sounds.
Weirdly, though, this one turns out to be more thoughtful and compassionate about this sort of thing than, for instance, much of Dickens. It’s like Trollope’s ideas are 90% fixed to those that dominated his time, but the other 10% roam to a freer, more compassionate place. They might not put up their feet and stay there awhile, but at least the story makes that place conceivable.
Here’s some of the 90%: at one point, which makes total sense at the time, unfortunately, one character wonders whether an impending child will be “a Popenjoy” or “a disability” (Guess which one’s the girl!). And then there’s Trollope’s ruthless hatchet job on the motives, manners and, most especially, appearances of those in the Women’s Rights movement:
”Strongly-visaged spinsters and mutinous wives, who twice a week were worked up by Dr Fleabody to a full belief that a glorious era was at hand in which women would be chosen by constituencies, would wag their heads in courts of law, would buy and sell in Capel Court, and have balances at their bankers.”
Women with bank accounts. The horror!!
But then he makes you go and think about “real tyranny” that can be experienced by women under their men’s command. Or the limited options available to most women due to class and gender.
Any audible retching sounds were also suppressed by the fact that this book is chock-full of questions: “What should I do?” “Is He Popenjoy?” “ ’What Matter if She Does?’ ” The prevalent queries make the social world of the book seem more mutable than it might otherwise appear from the plot.
And Trollope tempers his ossification on other topics, too. There’s dollop of aggressive nationalism, but then he inserts: “The national conviction that an Englishman could thrash three foreigners, and if necessary, eat them, was strong with him.” (2.39). The novel engages with that troublesome modernity in a similarly ambiguous way.
Compared to the other two Trollope novels I’ve read, The Warden and Barchester Towers, this novel’s structure needle does get stuck in the record at times. Plus, some characters are distinctly 2-D, like the requisite oily, scheming clergyman who reads like an oily, scheming after thought. Also, six thousand million characters into his novelistic career, he may have been running a wee bit short of inventiveness when it came to evocative names, e.g., the Women’s Rights-ers Baroness Banmann (It’s like she wants to BAN the MEN…get it?? Trollope, you clever minx.) and Lady Selena Protest (It’s like she wants to PROTEST against the men..get it?? Trollope, you…oh, never mind.) .
So let me sum up: if you’re going to read one, or just a few, Victorian chunksters, this probably shouldn’t be the one. But if you’re up to your shirred neckline in Trollope, Dickens, Gaskell, Thackery, et al., this one is an unusual and meta-educational addition to the bunch.
This book pairs well with Anything having to do with gender in Victorian England. Like, oh, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Trollope’s The Warden, gives you a typical Angel for comparison. I’m sure it would pair well with other 93.5% of Trollope novels I have yet to read; it did make me want to head straight to the all-you-can-eat Trollope-novel buffet.
April 17, 2007
Shall I start my review with a question? I think I shall. What induces an author to use a question as a book title? It always seems a bit off-putting to me. And yet Trollope did it twice -- three times if you count his play, Did He Steal It?, which was based on one of the plots in The Last Chronicle of Barset.
Ignore the title. This is excellent Trollope. Like a lot of later Trollope, it is a good deal darker than his early novels. This never went over well with his contemporary readers. I think while a writer is still alive, the readers who love him have invested that love in his earlier novels, and they hope his next novel will be just like the ones before. After he's dead, we have access to the entire corpus, and although we read the books one by one, we don't have the same expectations that the writer's contemporaries had -- and of course we often don't read his works in the order they were published. (I'm reviewing Trollope's novels in the order they were published, but that is not the way I read them.)
The question here has to do with the legitimacy of an infant. Is he the heir Popenjoy, or is he illegitimate and therefore no heir at all. His father, the Marquis, has returned to England with him and his mother, an Italian marchioness. The Marquis and Marchioness have been married on the Continent. Or so they say. But as anyone who has read Victorian novels -- certainly anyone who has read Trollope -- knows, a Continental "marriage" is always a red flag.
But the heirship question is really a minor part of this novel. As in The Way We Live Now, Trollope's focus is really on social hypocrisy. Few of the characters here are very honorable. The Marquis is one of Trollope's meanest creatures. And even some of those we are disposed to like when we first meet them turn out to be bigoted and selfish. Although it's sometimes presumptuous to try to imagine yourself in another century, I think I can see why many of Trollope's contemporary readers didn't like this novel. But the things they wouldn't have liked are the very things we expect in a modern novel. This is excellent Trollope. I think I said that already, but it's worth saying again.
Ignore the title. This is excellent Trollope. Like a lot of later Trollope, it is a good deal darker than his early novels. This never went over well with his contemporary readers. I think while a writer is still alive, the readers who love him have invested that love in his earlier novels, and they hope his next novel will be just like the ones before. After he's dead, we have access to the entire corpus, and although we read the books one by one, we don't have the same expectations that the writer's contemporaries had -- and of course we often don't read his works in the order they were published. (I'm reviewing Trollope's novels in the order they were published, but that is not the way I read them.)
The question here has to do with the legitimacy of an infant. Is he the heir Popenjoy, or is he illegitimate and therefore no heir at all. His father, the Marquis, has returned to England with him and his mother, an Italian marchioness. The Marquis and Marchioness have been married on the Continent. Or so they say. But as anyone who has read Victorian novels -- certainly anyone who has read Trollope -- knows, a Continental "marriage" is always a red flag.
But the heirship question is really a minor part of this novel. As in The Way We Live Now, Trollope's focus is really on social hypocrisy. Few of the characters here are very honorable. The Marquis is one of Trollope's meanest creatures. And even some of those we are disposed to like when we first meet them turn out to be bigoted and selfish. Although it's sometimes presumptuous to try to imagine yourself in another century, I think I can see why many of Trollope's contemporary readers didn't like this novel. But the things they wouldn't have liked are the very things we expect in a modern novel. This is excellent Trollope. I think I said that already, but it's worth saying again.
July 16, 2024
Mary Lovelace, the daughter of a Dean, marries Lord George, the younger brother to a Marquis. Lord George previously asked his cousin Adelaide to marry him, but she refused him and married a rich old man instead. After George and Mary's marriage Adelaide tells George she still loves him and he is drawn into an inappropriate flirtation with her, which Mary eventually discovers. Mary tries to love George, who is older than her, but enjoys the company of the young and dashing Jack de Baron. George tries to interfere with this friendship, but Mary points out that she has done nothing wrong. Meanwhile the Marquis returns from a 30 year residence in Italy with a wife and a sickly son. The son's legitimacy is in question and George and his father-in-law, the Dean, employ a lawyer to try to get to the bottom of things.
In many ways this was an enjoyable Trollope: the Marquis is terrible and the mystery surrounding his wife and son is initially intriguing; Adelaide is evil and scheming and I loved the scene where the Dean attacks the Marquis. Lady Sarah, who comes to appreciate Mary and always deals with her fairly is a touching character and the old Marchioness, while irrational and annoying (and latterly presumably suffering from dementia), is well drawn.
But, there were problems for me: I never understood why Mary loved George (apart from because she had married him) - he never said anything kind to her or supported her or in any way seemed to appreciate her good qualities. On the contrary, he was weak and negative and ineffectual and whiney. I disliked the way he and his family looked down on Mary for her middle class origins and only truly took her to their hearts when she became the mother of the heir. Trollope seemed largely to allow them to get away with this. They supported the Marquis as the head of the family to a truly masochistic level.
Trollope seemed to get bored of the central question of whether the child from Italy was or was not the heir: he killed him off so that it didn't matter and then the Marquis claimed that he didn't even know himself what the truth was. By this stage I wanted to know the answer in black and white. Trollope treated the women's rights movement with mockery, while allowing Mary to stick up for herself in her marriage and giving Lady Sarah important things to say about the role available to her and her sisters.
I think overall I felt that people didn't get their just desserts and it left a sour taste in my mouth.
In many ways this was an enjoyable Trollope: the Marquis is terrible and the mystery surrounding his wife and son is initially intriguing; Adelaide is evil and scheming and I loved the scene where the Dean attacks the Marquis. Lady Sarah, who comes to appreciate Mary and always deals with her fairly is a touching character and the old Marchioness, while irrational and annoying (and latterly presumably suffering from dementia), is well drawn.
But, there were problems for me: I never understood why Mary loved George (apart from because she had married him) - he never said anything kind to her or supported her or in any way seemed to appreciate her good qualities. On the contrary, he was weak and negative and ineffectual and whiney. I disliked the way he and his family looked down on Mary for her middle class origins and only truly took her to their hearts when she became the mother of the heir. Trollope seemed largely to allow them to get away with this. They supported the Marquis as the head of the family to a truly masochistic level.
Trollope seemed to get bored of the central question of whether the child from Italy was or was not the heir: he killed him off so that it didn't matter and then the Marquis claimed that he didn't even know himself what the truth was. By this stage I wanted to know the answer in black and white. Trollope treated the women's rights movement with mockery, while allowing Mary to stick up for herself in her marriage and giving Lady Sarah important things to say about the role available to her and her sisters.
I think overall I felt that people didn't get their just desserts and it left a sour taste in my mouth.
April 4, 2023
Enjoyable, but not my favorite of Trollope’s. The storyline dragged a bit at times, and the plots of the minor characters were brought in so infrequently that I would forget what was going on with those characters when they appeared previously (although I listened as I was going to sleep so it’s possible I missed some stuff😬).
I really like the characters of Mary and how she grew in confidence and came into her own as she dealt with her in-laws. I was disappointed Lord George didn’t grow more as a character; he and the Dean were both great characters but they didn’t really learn the lessons I hoped they’d learn. I might detect more development in their characters on a second read/listen.
The Marquis, though rather despicable, was actually one of my favorite characters because of how he pointed out the insularity and prejudice of the British aristocracy. But in the end, the folks who needed to learn that didn’t really seem to.
I really like the characters of Mary and how she grew in confidence and came into her own as she dealt with her in-laws. I was disappointed Lord George didn’t grow more as a character; he and the Dean were both great characters but they didn’t really learn the lessons I hoped they’d learn. I might detect more development in their characters on a second read/listen.
The Marquis, though rather despicable, was actually one of my favorite characters because of how he pointed out the insularity and prejudice of the British aristocracy. But in the end, the folks who needed to learn that didn’t really seem to.
May 22, 2020
I'm a huge fan of Trollope and like all his books. This was no exception, but wasn't quite my favorite. I found Mary's transition from "trying" to love her husband to being wildly in love with him a bit too sudden. And the Dean was supposed to be a likeable character, I think, but for me his rejoicing at the death of the Marquis and of the Marquis' two-year-old son was very offputting.
Adelaide Houton reminded me of Arabella Trefoil in "The American Senator", but I had more sympathy for Arabella. And the Marquis reminded me of the poor husband in "He Knew He Was Right". The theme of mental illness was explored in both books and gives some idea of how the Victorians viewed "madness".
Trollope wrote very good female characters, and I think generally liked women, but he really detested women's rights activists, and mocks them cruelly in this book. (Calling them "The Disabilities" is only the start.) So, one has to sort of check the modern sensibility at the door or this is a big turnoff.
The names are funny, as was common in Trollope's books (and Dickens's as well). Look for little jokes in the naming of many characters. This is definitely worth reading, but if you are new to Trollope, try another one (maybe "Ralph the Heir" or the Barsetshire Novels) and then come back to this.
Adelaide Houton reminded me of Arabella Trefoil in "The American Senator", but I had more sympathy for Arabella. And the Marquis reminded me of the poor husband in "He Knew He Was Right". The theme of mental illness was explored in both books and gives some idea of how the Victorians viewed "madness".
Trollope wrote very good female characters, and I think generally liked women, but he really detested women's rights activists, and mocks them cruelly in this book. (Calling them "The Disabilities" is only the start.) So, one has to sort of check the modern sensibility at the door or this is a big turnoff.
The names are funny, as was common in Trollope's books (and Dickens's as well). Look for little jokes in the naming of many characters. This is definitely worth reading, but if you are new to Trollope, try another one (maybe "Ralph the Heir" or the Barsetshire Novels) and then come back to this.
September 28, 2020
Trollope goes after the sensational themes made famous by Collins, Brandon, in this novel. A lesser known novel of his , but should not be ignored. Great characters, good plot and strong writing.
November 7, 2018
I really enjoyed this novel by AnthonyTrollope! Engaging and entertaining.
February 11, 2020
An English Lord returns to his home with an Italian wife and son. But is the son legitimate, really the heir? Is he the future Lord Popenjoy? The Lord's mother, sisters, brother and his wife realize life will now change! Another Trollope I loved!
January 14, 2020
Another page-turner by Anthony Trollope. I’m working my way down a list of his novels arranged by popularity, and this is number twelve. It concerns a beautiful, fun-loving young woman whose father encourages her to marry a nobleman, so that she might become the mother of a marquis. The girl doesn’t care about rank at all, but everybody else in the story seems to. As an American I absolutely don’t understand the concept of nobility, and why some people are better than others because they are born with titles. I totally revere our founding fathers for affirming that all men are created equal. Still, I enjoy these Anthony Trollope novels. Twelve down, thirty-five to go.
March 30, 2022
In an odd coincidence, I was reading about one character assaulting another one over an insult directed at a woman in this book when the Will Smith/Chris Rock Oscar incident occurred. This late Trollope novel still shows him in peak form. I recently reread The Eustace Diamonds, which was written around the same time as this one and is one of my favourite Trollope novels. There are some slight similarities, notably in the ways Adelaide Houghton echoes Lizzie Eustace, and in the reliance in the plot of a mystery--in both cases, reflected in the titles. (Indeed, John Sutherland in his introduction tracks multiple ways the novel echoes other Trollope books.) The Popenjoy of the title (who does not appear until almost a quarter of the way into the book) is an infant who may or may not be the legitimate heir of the Marquis of Brotherton, a vicious and callous man. Oddly, given the title of th ebook and the obvious important for questions of inheritance of the status of young Popenjoy, the novel is rather more interested in the troubled marriage between Mary (nee Lovelace) and George Germain, the younger brother of said vicious Marquis. Mary is slightly over half the age of her austere and duty-obsessed husband, not to mention her overly pious sisters-in-law, and rebels against the authority imposed on her. Early in the novel George's failure to measure up to Mary's ideal of a romantic lover (she spends a lot of time trying to teach herself to love her husband, who she married more at her father's behest than out of any real affection) suggests that she may in fact wander, especially when the attractive and rakish Jack de Baron turns up. Trollope is more nuanced than that, though, and both spouses find themselves struggling with reconciling their desires and natures to their marriage. Trollope's expertise at depicting the mind in conflict with itself and with the individual struggling with the pressures of the external world, is in high gear here, and very absorbing. Less successful is Trollope's rather ham-handed satire of the women's rights movement, which is surprising and disappointing, given how clear-eyed he seems to be in the main plot about the limitations women suffer in the marriage market. The ending also rather peters out rather than providing a strong finish--rather like the life of the Marquis, actually. Overall, though, this is a very strong late Trollope novel
July 27, 2016
Silly-sounding title, but a perfectly fine Anthony Trollope novel, though certainly not the first thing I'd recommend to anyone unfamiliar with the best 19th century British novelist (don't even get me started about Dickens) .
December 19, 2021
Great story. I enjoyed how the book wasn't too terribly predictable. The characters were mostly flat and could have been more developed. However given the time period this was written I guess this was a pretty common step for writers.
April 30, 2025
Anthony Trollope is a master of the upper middle class English domestic drama. I love his Palliser novels and especially the Chronicles of Barsetshire. He isn’t interested in extraordinary events so much as he’s interested in normal people trying to be decent (or sometimes not) in the face of ordinary troubles indicative of the state of English society at the time. After reading his work, I always feel like I understand human nature better.
In this standalone novel, Mary Lovelace marries George Germaine. He brings the title to the marriage, while she brings the fortune. But in terms of gentility, Mary is superior to her husband’s family. She is sweet, kind, and decent. Her husband is dour, dutiful, and a little boring, but handsome. She sets out to love him. On her side is her father, “the dean.” He’s a prudent man who wants from the start to make sure that Mary doesn’t become cowed by her husband or his family. On his side, he has an aging mother and three battle-ax sisters. And an older brother.
His brother becomes the real fly in the ointment. The marquis lacks all the duty and all the decency of his family. He’s arrogant, neglectful, spiteful, and cruel. He lives abroad, leaves all of his responsibilities as landowner to his younger brother, and takes no notice of the widowed mother and spinster sisters under his protection. So George fills the breach.
Then the Marquis suddenly announces that he’s returning home with a wife and an heir, little Lord Popenjoy (pronounced “pop-enjoy”). He kicks his dependent mother and sisters out of the family home and even takes issue with them staying nearby in a house owned by his mother. He insults everyone who comes near him and won’t let anyone see his alleged wife and son. Both George and the dean become suspicious of the legitimacy of the little Popenjoy,
But while George is eager to prove that his nephew is legitimate, the dean is eager to prove that he’s not. While their lawyers look into it, Mary avails herself of the opportunity to get out from under the thumbs of the ruling Germaine ladies and goes to London. Her father had made a house of her own in London part of her pre-nup, or George would never have let her go. She likes to socialize and quickly makes new friends, but he thinks all fun is frivolous, dancing is inappropriate, and his wife should act like his mother. The only friend he makes in London is Lady Houghton.
Lady Houghton was George’s old flame back in the day. She’s worldly, cunning, selfish, and bored. And he’s completely taken in. She doesn’t love him, but she wants to play with him. She hates his wife because she’s jealous that he could marry anyone after she turned him down. So she seeks to create a scandal.
Meanwhile, Mary befriends Jack de Baron, Lady Houghton’s cousin, and even though he quickly realizes that she would never betray her husband, George himself doesn’t seem to realize that and is unreasonably jealous.
Knowing something of his brother’s jealousy and hating the dean for investigating his marriage and heir, the Marquis insults Mary to the dean. The dean beats him up, causing a breach between the Lovelace household and the Germains. Poor Mary is caught in the middle. When she discovers a love letter from Lady Houghton to her husband, she’s heartbroken…and livid. George manages to explain away the almost-affair, but her trust in him is damaged for quite a while.
Little Lord Popenjoy is not doing well all this time. His parents separate, and he goes back to Italy with his mother, where he succumbs to his illness. The Marquis, who’s lived a dissipated adulthood and hates everything about his life, becomes ill and dies, too. Suddenly, George is the Marquis.
Mary is reunited with the Germains on the strength of the fact that she’s pregnant with the future Marquis, Lord Popenjoy. She and George are sorry for the deaths of their sad little nephew and his recalcitrant father; the new title is a mixed blessing for them. But the dean’s overjoyed. Eventually, everybody gets to move home to the family manor, Mary realizes that she’s really in love with her husband, he appreciates her at last, and they all live happily ever after. Except the late marquis’ Italian wife, it’s presumed.
If I had to decide on a theme for this book, it seems to be about the power struggle between men and women. Trollope describes the Women’s Rights movement with considerable humor, satirizing its adherents with some choice observations. But then he shows with some care and tenderness the real struggle behind those middle class doors and offers grace and mutual respect as a tonic. We all benefit from the feminist movement; what he’s poking fun at is hypocrisy in all its forms, including George’s in lording it over his wife when his hands are so far from clean. It’s an interesting contrast.
In this standalone novel, Mary Lovelace marries George Germaine. He brings the title to the marriage, while she brings the fortune. But in terms of gentility, Mary is superior to her husband’s family. She is sweet, kind, and decent. Her husband is dour, dutiful, and a little boring, but handsome. She sets out to love him. On her side is her father, “the dean.” He’s a prudent man who wants from the start to make sure that Mary doesn’t become cowed by her husband or his family. On his side, he has an aging mother and three battle-ax sisters. And an older brother.
His brother becomes the real fly in the ointment. The marquis lacks all the duty and all the decency of his family. He’s arrogant, neglectful, spiteful, and cruel. He lives abroad, leaves all of his responsibilities as landowner to his younger brother, and takes no notice of the widowed mother and spinster sisters under his protection. So George fills the breach.
Then the Marquis suddenly announces that he’s returning home with a wife and an heir, little Lord Popenjoy (pronounced “pop-enjoy”). He kicks his dependent mother and sisters out of the family home and even takes issue with them staying nearby in a house owned by his mother. He insults everyone who comes near him and won’t let anyone see his alleged wife and son. Both George and the dean become suspicious of the legitimacy of the little Popenjoy,
But while George is eager to prove that his nephew is legitimate, the dean is eager to prove that he’s not. While their lawyers look into it, Mary avails herself of the opportunity to get out from under the thumbs of the ruling Germaine ladies and goes to London. Her father had made a house of her own in London part of her pre-nup, or George would never have let her go. She likes to socialize and quickly makes new friends, but he thinks all fun is frivolous, dancing is inappropriate, and his wife should act like his mother. The only friend he makes in London is Lady Houghton.
Lady Houghton was George’s old flame back in the day. She’s worldly, cunning, selfish, and bored. And he’s completely taken in. She doesn’t love him, but she wants to play with him. She hates his wife because she’s jealous that he could marry anyone after she turned him down. So she seeks to create a scandal.
Meanwhile, Mary befriends Jack de Baron, Lady Houghton’s cousin, and even though he quickly realizes that she would never betray her husband, George himself doesn’t seem to realize that and is unreasonably jealous.
Knowing something of his brother’s jealousy and hating the dean for investigating his marriage and heir, the Marquis insults Mary to the dean. The dean beats him up, causing a breach between the Lovelace household and the Germains. Poor Mary is caught in the middle. When she discovers a love letter from Lady Houghton to her husband, she’s heartbroken…and livid. George manages to explain away the almost-affair, but her trust in him is damaged for quite a while.
Little Lord Popenjoy is not doing well all this time. His parents separate, and he goes back to Italy with his mother, where he succumbs to his illness. The Marquis, who’s lived a dissipated adulthood and hates everything about his life, becomes ill and dies, too. Suddenly, George is the Marquis.
Mary is reunited with the Germains on the strength of the fact that she’s pregnant with the future Marquis, Lord Popenjoy. She and George are sorry for the deaths of their sad little nephew and his recalcitrant father; the new title is a mixed blessing for them. But the dean’s overjoyed. Eventually, everybody gets to move home to the family manor, Mary realizes that she’s really in love with her husband, he appreciates her at last, and they all live happily ever after. Except the late marquis’ Italian wife, it’s presumed.
If I had to decide on a theme for this book, it seems to be about the power struggle between men and women. Trollope describes the Women’s Rights movement with considerable humor, satirizing its adherents with some choice observations. But then he shows with some care and tenderness the real struggle behind those middle class doors and offers grace and mutual respect as a tonic. We all benefit from the feminist movement; what he’s poking fun at is hypocrisy in all its forms, including George’s in lording it over his wife when his hands are so far from clean. It’s an interesting contrast.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2023
Anthony Trollope is one of my favourite authors, probably ranking a strong second to Dickens as far as the classical writers are concerned. I tend to view his books as being in 3 categories:
Outstanding: The Barsetshire Chronicles, starting with the Warden; the Political novels, such as Phineas Finn; and a couple of standalones - The Way We Live Now and Orley Farm.
Very Good: The Claverings, The Belton Estate, Rachel Ray, Marion Fay etc
Average: Miss Mackenzie, The Landleaguers, Castle Richmond etc: Books for True Fans of Trollope such as myself. I tend to give these works a mixture of low 4 star or 3 star ratings.
I place Is He Popenjoy? clearly in the third category. It tells the tale of Mary Lovelace, the daughter of the local cathedral's Dean, to George Germain, the 2nd son of the aristocratic Germain family headed up by Lord George's brother, the Marquis of Brotherton. It is very much a marriage of money ( the Dean is wealthy, but comes from humble beginnings ) and title, but no money.
The Marquis himself lives in Italy and is disdainful towards the rest of his family. He suddenly marries an Italian lady and a son promptly arrives. This is the young Popenjoy, so called because the heir to the title is always called Popenjoy. However, there is doubt as to his legitimacy and work is undertaken to uncover the truth of the matter. While never fully resolved, the plot takes a different turn rendering the question irrelevant at the end.
The book tends to meander at times over certain minor characters. However, Trollope does manage to create a trilogy of interesting females - Mary herself, Sarah her eldest sister-in-law, and the mischievous Adelaide Houghton. The Dean himself is an attractive personality, but the same cannot be said of Lord George, who comes over as "stuck up" most of the time, nor the Marquis who is downright malicious.
In summary, worth reading for true Trollope fans, but for new readers there are many better books to start with.
Outstanding: The Barsetshire Chronicles, starting with the Warden; the Political novels, such as Phineas Finn; and a couple of standalones - The Way We Live Now and Orley Farm.
Very Good: The Claverings, The Belton Estate, Rachel Ray, Marion Fay etc
Average: Miss Mackenzie, The Landleaguers, Castle Richmond etc: Books for True Fans of Trollope such as myself. I tend to give these works a mixture of low 4 star or 3 star ratings.
I place Is He Popenjoy? clearly in the third category. It tells the tale of Mary Lovelace, the daughter of the local cathedral's Dean, to George Germain, the 2nd son of the aristocratic Germain family headed up by Lord George's brother, the Marquis of Brotherton. It is very much a marriage of money ( the Dean is wealthy, but comes from humble beginnings ) and title, but no money.
The Marquis himself lives in Italy and is disdainful towards the rest of his family. He suddenly marries an Italian lady and a son promptly arrives. This is the young Popenjoy, so called because the heir to the title is always called Popenjoy. However, there is doubt as to his legitimacy and work is undertaken to uncover the truth of the matter. While never fully resolved, the plot takes a different turn rendering the question irrelevant at the end.
The book tends to meander at times over certain minor characters. However, Trollope does manage to create a trilogy of interesting females - Mary herself, Sarah her eldest sister-in-law, and the mischievous Adelaide Houghton. The Dean himself is an attractive personality, but the same cannot be said of Lord George, who comes over as "stuck up" most of the time, nor the Marquis who is downright malicious.
In summary, worth reading for true Trollope fans, but for new readers there are many better books to start with.
March 7, 2023
Another enjoyable Trollope with an interesting plot and varied cast of characters. In this instance I must confess that I found all of the supporting characters more interesting than the two main ones. Lord George is just dull and doesn’t grow or change, and Mary starts out as a very young, naive woman and while she does mature somewhat, I just never really warmed to her. To be totally honest, I kept hoping that somehow she’d be freed from Lord George to marry Jack De Baron, but I knew that in the world of Trollope, that wasn’t going to happen. While she does eventually become devoted to Lord George, I didn’t find it a very believable development.
There were several supporting characters, though, who more than made up for Mary and George’s dullness. The Marquis, while pretty heinous as a human being, was vividly drawn and alive. Jack De Baron was charming. I loved Lady Sarah’s development. The Dean, Adelaide, Mrs. Montacute Jones…all interesting, if somewhat flawed. Among the standalone novels, there are several (including The American Senator and Miss Mackenzie) which I prefer over this one, but I’m glad I read it.
There were several supporting characters, though, who more than made up for Mary and George’s dullness. The Marquis, while pretty heinous as a human being, was vividly drawn and alive. Jack De Baron was charming. I loved Lady Sarah’s development. The Dean, Adelaide, Mrs. Montacute Jones…all interesting, if somewhat flawed. Among the standalone novels, there are several (including The American Senator and Miss Mackenzie) which I prefer over this one, but I’m glad I read it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 7, 2025
Is He Popenjoy? har mange små skønhedspletter men hovedhistorien er på højde med det bedste han har skrevet. Hele sideplottet med Baronesse Banmann (selvfølgelig har Trollope givet en skinger kvinderetsforkæmper navnet Banmann) er både unødvendigt og kikset - det ser lidt skidt ud i dag den måde hvorpå der gøres grin med kvindesagen, men det er næppe et tilfælde at værket, når det ikke prøver at være morsomt, i den grad udstiller uretfærdigheden i kvindens position. Mary's uskyldige venskab med Jack de Baron gøres af manden til meget værre end hans egen flirt med Adelaide Houghton, og udstiller (ligesom Angel Clare i "Tess of the d'Urbervilles") hykleriet i tidens seksualmoral. Lady Sarah er et klogere, bedre, værdigere menneske end hendes brødre, men hun er fuldstændig underlagt deres luner fordi hun er kvinde og de er mænd, den ene svag og vægelsindet, den anden en kolerisk narcissist, begge magtsyge - Brotherton vil ha magt over sin familie, og Lord George vil ha magt over sin kone. Det er således kun på overfladen Is He Popenjoy? træder lidt skævt kønspolitisk.
Hører til på hylden lige under hans bedste værker.
Hører til på hylden lige under hans bedste værker.
December 23, 2022
After reading the lacklustre Lady Anna, Is he Popenjoy? was recommended by a friend and what a contrast to that previous novel. Unlike virtually every other Trollope I’ve read this one features a couple who are already married in the first chapter of the novel and follows their relationship in its early years when they are first discovering each other’s foibles, fancies and faults. At the center of the novel is the question of an inheritance, another common Trollope theme, and whether George’s older brother, the Marquis, not only has a legitimate marriage but consequently a legitimate son and heir to the family fortune.
George makes you want to give him a stiff talking to as regards speaking his mind and you want Mary to be a little less doting wife on occasion but there are some wonderful side characters of who first and foremost is Mary’s father the Dean who is quite fabulous; the Marquis is someone you love to hate and with the tongue in cheek writing of society and its prominent families, this is classic Trollope!
George makes you want to give him a stiff talking to as regards speaking his mind and you want Mary to be a little less doting wife on occasion but there are some wonderful side characters of who first and foremost is Mary’s father the Dean who is quite fabulous; the Marquis is someone you love to hate and with the tongue in cheek writing of society and its prominent families, this is classic Trollope!
October 6, 2021
Flavorful character dynamics + delightful trotting satire
Mary Lovelace was my favorite, and I always love those with a backbone and those who make the best of their situation. The one she marries, Lord George has a stick in his ass with a nose turned up at lower-class people type personality. The marquis is an in-your-face type antagonist but the Dean took care of him, while George was provoking in me the most ardent of desires to jump in the book and slap him a couple of dozen times. A strong point I feel, in Trollope's writing, is the way conflicts between the people are masterfully written. It feels so organic and complex so that I felt as if I were sitting right there, watching it all go down. Yet, the author also seems to lose sight of the book's main question: Is he Popenjoy? This part, I feel is rather undeveloped, which leaves the novel in a less tied-together state and creates a rather sort of uncompleted feeling to it. For example, I do wonder what the purpose of the Marquis was. Sad, miserable, and living for the sake of spite. I did hope there was more exploration into his intentions. What about the Italian wife? And the kid? It feels like the Marquis's purpose in the story was just to create conflict.
Mary Lovelace was my favorite, and I always love those with a backbone and those who make the best of their situation. The one she marries, Lord George has a stick in his ass with a nose turned up at lower-class people type personality. The marquis is an in-your-face type antagonist but the Dean took care of him, while George was provoking in me the most ardent of desires to jump in the book and slap him a couple of dozen times. A strong point I feel, in Trollope's writing, is the way conflicts between the people are masterfully written. It feels so organic and complex so that I felt as if I were sitting right there, watching it all go down. Yet, the author also seems to lose sight of the book's main question: Is he Popenjoy? This part, I feel is rather undeveloped, which leaves the novel in a less tied-together state and creates a rather sort of uncompleted feeling to it. For example, I do wonder what the purpose of the Marquis was. Sad, miserable, and living for the sake of spite. I did hope there was more exploration into his intentions. What about the Italian wife? And the kid? It feels like the Marquis's purpose in the story was just to create conflict.
March 19, 2024
This late Trollope novel is not in the first-rank but is well worth reading. It has an unusual background plot (which is supposedly akin to the notorious Tichborne Claimant case). For me, the most striking aspect is the strong characterisation of two of the men who influence the hero and heroine. One is a thoroughly appalling aristocrat who has no redeeming features whatsoever. The second is an extraordinarily ambitious and combative senior cleric. The clash between the two is literally amazing.
Aside from the main plot, which in classic Trollopian fashion, is convoluted, the author takes aim at the growing movement for female emancipation. His prejudices, which today are uncomfortable, are given comic effect, which does take the edge of them to an extent.
This edition carries an excellent introduction by John Sutherland, which should be read after the novel, not before or during.
Recommended for Trollope fans.
Aside from the main plot, which in classic Trollopian fashion, is convoluted, the author takes aim at the growing movement for female emancipation. His prejudices, which today are uncomfortable, are given comic effect, which does take the edge of them to an extent.
This edition carries an excellent introduction by John Sutherland, which should be read after the novel, not before or during.
Recommended for Trollope fans.
September 20, 2018
This book took a long time to get going for me—not until the end of the first volume. Before then there was too much setup, too many unpleasant characters, and too much snobbery, prudery, anti-Semitism, and sexism. There was still plenty of the latter in the second volume, but not as much. Trollope's great strength is his subtle understanding of personal relationships, and when that drama got going, he was in his stride. The Dean, I think, is one of his greatest creations—not an admirable man by any means, but so vividly drawn, and probably emblematic of many other people of the time. And the way the author shows the complex and painful interactions in the Germain family is masterful. There aren't many novelists who are as realistic about family relationships.
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