Where to start with Trollope?

if you can find it, watch the BBC adaptation of The Pallisers in 25 episodes. It’s still excellent.

Invented the pillar box, I believe.

Going by the many references in 19th and early 20th century novels I've read, the post used to be phenomenally quick. You could post something in London in the morning and it would be delivered on the same day. There were three or four deliveries a day, I think, in the cities, anyway. The arrival of the telephone and telegram must have reduced the number of letters posted.

Interested as am about to start Dr Thorne. I may report back.

@diningiswest

Just remembered another Trollope factoid.

I think it's in Can Hou Forgive Her, where a suitor posts a letter in London to the heroine, late on Christmas Eve, and it arrives on Christmas morning at the country house where she is staying!

Of course Trollope was head of the Post Office, so he could have just put it in for effect!

I must read/re-read some Trollope. I read all the Barchester novels ages ago and TWWLN but never managed to get going on the Palliser novels. HKHWR - I know I read it, but I can remember nothing about it. Hmm.

I like Trollope, but I have to say I prefer Dickens. I read a fascinating biography of Thackeray's daughter, Anne Thackeray Ritchie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Isabella_Thackeray_Ritchie). She met just about everybody who was anybody in Literary London from around the middle of the 19th century to well into the 20th century. She was related to a quite a few of them, including Virginia Woolf. It was obvious that the Thackerays and the Trollopes thought Dickens was several rungs below them on the social ladder - then there would have been professional jealousy at his meteoric success, and horror and snobbishness at his self-promotion and enormous ego - and then, actually entirely justifiably, they were all horrified by the way he treated his wife. I've read quite a bit about Dickens and I don't think I would have got on with him very well as a person, but my god that man could write. The opening of Bleak House is one of the best things I've ever read.

One of my very favourite non-series Trollopes is Ayala’s Angel.

Would recommend The Vicar of Bullhampton, Framley Parsonage, and Can You Forgive Her?.

Avoid Miss Mackenzie!

Not every novel tbf! I did find it interesting that you could order a horse to be sent by train to where you were going hunting though.
Before the Internet too!

@TonTonMacoute My even more bemusing recent discovery - from reading too much about the lives of v aristocratic young women - is that you could, if you were stuck at a rural station, order a special train to come as though it were a taxi.

No way did Lily shag yer man. She kissed him and that was it. She always reminds me of Madeline Basset in the wooster books - every time god sneezes a flower is born etc. Still, Augustus (was it augustus?) got the best karma/revenge fate in the history of romances.

I think if you assume Lily has shagged whatsisname (which is heavily hinted at), her belief that she is ruined and can’t in good conscience marry anyone else makes a bit more sense.

Though she is still a massive drip.

Another voice for the BBC Radio 4 dramatizations they were very good and moved it all along at a decent pace. They used to be on CD, I don't know what format is available.

I would go straight to Barchester Towers. I re-read it recently and it made me laugh all over again.

The American Senator is good too - but skip the american senator's musings on English politics and society (and you may want to skim the hunt too). I loved Dr. Thorne too. Well actually, as you can tell from my name, I love all Trollope and I think he is underestimated. He wrote very real characters living very believable lives.

I absolutely agree that Lily needs to be shaken. She is even worse in The Last Chronicle - which is a magnificent read.

In every novel there will also be at least one chapter which is an entirely gratuitous description of a hunt. Skim that for plot points but don't bother otherwise...

Not every novel tbf! I did find it interesting that you could order a horse to be sent by train to where you were going hunting though.
Before the Internet too!

Not one to start Trollope with, but He Knew He Was Right. A red flag on every page, pretty much 🚩

Lily Dale needs shaking until her teeth rattle, imo. Which has nothing to do with HKHWR.

Oh I love that about him! Like Murakami always had an extended description of cooking beef with green peppers, and feeding his bloody cat 🤣

Oops just realised - I thought you were taking about Joanna too!

I really like “A village affair” and “the rectors wife” - I do find most of the others I’ve read very tedious though. Most of her characters are utterly contemptible and irritating.

I thought you were talking about Joanna

Agreed either TWWLN, which is an epic and excellent book, and very relevant to now, or read the Palliser novels in sequence.

In every novel there will also be at least one chapter which is an entirely gratuitous description of a hunt. Skim that for plot points but don't bother otherwise...

I was being flippant!

It would be very silly (and a bit odd IMO) to let something as trivial as that put you off reading a book!

Who the fuck cares what that man thinks about anything?

But I seem to remember that Lily is John Major's favourite woman in the world... could be off putting. Will just google...

A Small House at Allington is my favorite!

I find Trollope lovely and cosy to read... kind of like a Christmas jigsaw puzzle.
I enjoyed TWWLN and the Barsetshire Chronicles, but now I'm into the Palliser novels I'm getting a bit sort of bored or disenchanted. It feels a bit formulaic. I think my irritation surfaces when he describes people's appearance - e.g. 'her nose and chin were perfect', 'his forehead was low', blah blah blah. Do you know what I mean? And the focus on debt (running up debts in clubs, signing bills for other people, minor gambling problems, trying to marry people with fortunes) which I found so fascinating at first, I'm now also finding a bit same-y.
But actually I feel disloyal just saying all of this... I'm looking forward to my lunch-time read of Phineas Finn!

The BBC radio adaptions (dramas not audiobooks) are great, if you struggle with any of the Barchester novels.