Anthony Trollope - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

critic who wrote the article I know to be a good critic, inclined

to be more than fair to me; but in this case I could not agree with

him, so much do I love the man whose character I had endeavoured

to portray.]

That the man's character should be understood as I understand

it--or that of his wife's, the delineation of which has also been

a matter of much happy care to me--I have no right to expect, seeing

that the operation of describing has not been confined to one novel,

which might perhaps be read through by the majority of those who

commenced it. It has been carried on through three or four, each

of which will be forgotten even by the most zealous reader almost

as soon as read. In The Prime Minister, my Prime Minister will not

allow his wife to take office among, or even over, those ladies who

are attached by office to the Queen's court. "I should not choose,"

he says to her, "that my wife should have any duties unconnected

with our joint family and home." Who will remember in reading

those words that, in a former story, published some years before,

he tells his wife, when she has twitted him with his willingness

to clean the Premier's shoes, that he would even allow her to clean

them if it were for the good of the country? And yet it is by such

details as these that I have, for many years past, been manufacturing

within my own mind the characters of the man and his wife.

I think that Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, is a perfect

gentleman. If he be not, then am I unable to describe a gentleman.

She is by no means a perfect lady; but if she be not all over

a woman, then am I not able to describe a woman. I do not think

it probable that my name will remain among those who in the next

century will be known as the writers of English prose fiction;--but

if it does, that permanence of success will probably rest on the

character of Plantagenet Palliser, Lady Glencora, and the Rev. Mr.

Crawley.

I have now come to the end of that long series of books written by

myself with which the public is already acquainted. Of those which

I may hereafter be able to add to them I cannot speak; though I

have an idea that I shall even yet once more have recourse to my

political hero as the mainstay of another story. When The Prime

Minister was finished, I at once began another novel, which is now

completed in three volumes, and which is called Is He Popenjoy?

There are two Popenjoys in the book, one succeeding to the title

held by the other; but as they are both babies, and do not in the

course of the story progress beyond babyhood, the future readers,

should the tale ever be published, will not be much interested in

them. Nevertheless the story, as a story, is not, I think, amiss.

Since that I have written still another three-volume novel, to

which, very much in opposition to my publisher, I have given the

name of The American Senator. [Footnote: The American Senator and

Popenjoy have appeared, each with fair success. Neither of them has

encountered that reproach which, in regard to The Prime Minister,

seemed to tell me that my work as a novelist should be brought to

a close. And yet I feel assured that they are very inferior to The

Prime Minister.] It is to appear in Temple Bar, and is to commence

its appearance on the first of next month. Such being its

circumstances, I do not know that I can say anything else about it

here.

And so I end the record of my literary performances,--which I

think are more in amount than the works of any other living English

author. If any English authors not living have written more--as

may probably have been the case--I do not know who they are. I find

that, taking the books which have appeared under our names, I have

published much more than twice as much as Carlyle. I have also

published considerably more than Voltaire, even including his

letters. We are told that Varro, at the age of eighty, had written

480 volumes, and that he went on writing for eight years longer.

I wish I knew what was the length of Varro's volumes; I comfort

myself by reflecting that the amount of manuscript described as a

book in Varro's time was not much. Varro, too, is dead, and Voltaire;

whereas I am still living, and may add to the pile.

The following is a list of the books I have written, with the dates

of publication and the sums I have received for them. The dates

given are the years in which the works were published as a whole,

most of them having appeared before in some serial form.

Names of Works. Date of Publication. Total Sums Received.

The Macdermots of Ballycloran, 1847 (pounds)48 6 9

The Kellys and the O'Kellys, 1848 123 19 5

La Vendee, 1850 20 0 0

The Warden, 1855 \ 727 11 3

Barchester Towers, 1857 /

The Three Clerks, 1858 250 0 0

Doctor Thorne, 1858 400 0 0

The West Indies and the

Spanish Main, 1859 250 0 0

The Bertrams, 1859 400 0 0

Carried forward, (pounds)2219 16 17

Names of Works. Date of Publication. Total Sums Received.

Brought Forward, (pounds)2219 16 17

Castle Richmond, 1860 600 0 0

Framley Parsonage, 1861 1000 0 0

Tales of All

Countries--1st Series, 1861 \

" " 2d 1863 > 1830 0 0

" " 3d 1870 /

Orley Farm, 1862 3135 0 0

North America, 1862 1250 0 0

Rachel Ray, 1863 1645 0 0

The Small House at Allington, 1864 3000 0 0

Can You Forgive Her? 1864 3525 0 0

Miss Mackenzie, 1865 1300 0 0

The Belton Estate, 1866 1757 0 0

The Claverings, 1867 2800 0 0

The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1867 3000 0 0

Nina Balatka, 1867 450 0 0

Linda Tressel, 1868 450 0 0

Phineas Finn, 1869 3200 0 0

He Knew He Was Right, 1869 3200 0 0

Brown, Jones, and Robinson, 1870 600 0 0

The Vicar of Bullhampton, 1870 2500 0 0

An Editor's Tales, 1870 378 0 0

Caesar (Ancient Classics), 1870 0 0 0

[Footnote: This was given by me as a present to

my friend John Blackwood]

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, 1871 750 0 0

Ralph the Heir, 1871 2500 0 0

The Golden Lion of Granpere, 1872 550 0 0

The Eustace Diamonds, 1873 2500 0 0

Australia and New Zealand, 1873 1300 0 0

Phineas Redux, 1874 2500 0 0

Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, 1874 450 0 0

Carry forward, (pounds)48,389 17 5

Names of Works. Date of Publication. Total Sums Received.

Brought forward, (pounds)48,389 17 5

Lady Anna, 1874 1200 0 0

The Way We Live Now, 1875 3000 0 0

The Prime Minister, 1876 2500 0 0

The American Senator, 1877 1800 0 0

Is He Popenjoy? 1878 1600 0 0

South Africa, 1878 850 0 0

John Caldigate, 1879 1800 0 0

Sundries, 7800 0 0

____________

(pounds)68,939 17 5

------------

It will not, I am sure, be thought that, in making my boast as

to the quantity, I have endeavoured to lay claim to any literary

excellence. That, in the writing of books, quantity without quality is

a vice and a misfortune, has been too manifestly settled to leave

a doubt on such a matter. But I do lay claim to whatever merit

should be accorded to me for persevering diligence in my profession.

And I make the claim, not with a view to my own glory, but for

the benefit of those who may read these pages, and when young may

intend to follow the same career. Nulla dies sine linea. Let that

be their motto. And let their work be to them as is his common work

to the common labourer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary.

He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hours

at his desk without moving,--as men have sat, or said that they

have sat. More than nine-tenths of my literary work has been done

in the last twenty years, and during twelve of those years I followed

another profession. I have never been a slave to this work, giving

due time, if not more than due time, to the amusements I have loved.

But I have been constant,--and constancy in labour will conquer

all difficulties. Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo.

It may interest some if I state that during the last twenty years

I have made by literature something near (pounds)70,000. As I have said

before in these pages, I look upon the result as comfortable, but

not splendid.

It will not, I trust, be supposed by any reader that I have intended

in this so-called autobiography to give a record of my inner life.

No man ever did so truly,--and no man ever will. Rousseau probably

attempted it, but who doubts but that Rousseau has confessed

in much the thoughts and convictions rather than the facts of his

life? If the rustle of a woman's petticoat has ever stirred my

blood; if a cup of wine has been a joy to me; if I have thought

tobacco at midnight in pleasant company to be one of the elements

of an earthly paradise; if now and again I have somewhat recklessly

fluttered a (pounds)5 note over a card-table;--of what matter is that to

any reader? I have betrayed no woman. Wine has brought me to no

sorrow. It has been the companionship of smoking that I have loved,

rather than the habit. I have never desired to win money, and I

have lost none. To enjoy the excitement of pleasure, but to be free

from its vices and ill effects,--to have the sweet, and leave the

bitter untasted,--that has been my study. The preachers tell us that

this is impossible. It seems to me that hitherto I have succeeded

fairly well. I will not say that I have never scorched a finger,--but

I carry no ugly wounds.

For what remains to me of life I trust for my happiness still

chiefly to my work--hoping that when the power of work be over with

me, God may be pleased to take me from a world in which, according

to my view, there can be no joy; secondly, to the love of those who

love me; and then to my books. That I can read and be happy while

I am reading, is a great blessing. Could I remember, as some men

do, what I read, I should have been able to call myself an educated

man. But that power I have never possessed. Something is always

left,--something dim and inaccurate,--but still something sufficient

to preserve the taste for more. I am inclined to think that it is

so with most readers.

Of late years, putting aside the Latin classics, I have found

my greatest pleasure in our old English dramatists,--not from any

excessive love of their work, which often irritates me by its want

of truth to nature, even while it shames me by its language,--but

from curiosity in searching their plots and examining their character.

If I live a few years longer, I shall, I think, leave in my copies

of these dramatists, down to the close of James I., written criticisms

on every play. No one who has not looked closely into it knows how

many there are.

Now I stretch out my hand, and from the further shore I bid adieu

to all who have cared to read any among the many words that I have

written.

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