This post reminds me of our mutual friend's mother who used to say to our friend: "you can love a rich man too." Hopefully some of these wealthy women were loved as well as coveted for their riches.
I just finished (re)reading Framley Parsonage with a friend of mine. I read the entire cycle of Barsetshire novels in 2016, but after the reread, I'm going to go back and reread. When I'm not reading Trollope, I forget that I should always be reading Trollope.
I agree that Dickens is the greater writer - in the sense that his prose is so beautiful that it amounts to blank verse in places. But I think that Trollope is the greater novelist. Sometimes, it feels to me as if Dickens was overly constrained by the form of the novel - and that he would have been a great cinematographer had he been alive when film was invented. He liked to show the inside via the outside, whereas Trollope is always interior to the characters.
Very apposite stumbling across this discussion of women’s legal standing in the 19th century when I am in the middle of reading Federici’s Caliban and the Witch! Miss Dunstable is such a lovely character and the moment you described is so poignant. And thinking of Trollope always makes me think of the excellent Mrs Oliphant who surely deserves to be better remembered. There was a period when Trollope just felt like too much (probably I had just had a glut) and Mrs Oliphant was my antidote.
These are awesome suggestions. I recently read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins which is yet another take on the wealthy being preyed upon. The laws at the time made marriage dangerous.
I've been rereading the Barchester Chronicles this year, writing a Note about each one each month (Framley Parsonage will be up at the weekend), so I was interested in your take on Miss Dunstable. I think in FP Trollope is treading water, he hasn't got as strong a grip on his plot as he had previously, and we lurch from one subplot to the next as if we're walking down the corridor in a wholly anachronistic train carriage (a bit like the Boldini paintings: definitely not Trollopian), eavesdropping on different, unrelated stories happening to people who happen to know each other. Miss D is a reactive character, things happen to her, people batten upon her, and she has not yet (I think) taken the initiative except to become friends with Frank and Mary. I'm much more taken with the pairs that Trollope plays with: the battling mothers, the battling clerical matrons, the young ladies waiting to marry, the clergymen who put their own inclinations above their good sense, etc. I think Mary Thorne is the true Cinderella character, since even she doesn't know about her fortune, and has to be offered for on her own merits, and be brave enough to accept the offer knowing (so she thinks) that she can bring nothing with her.
Yes, Mary Thorne is a true Cinderella. I think that Miss Dunstable is very active, though! She helps Frank stay steadfast to Mary despite considerable opposition; and she's very good at poking at the pretentious people who are constantly trying to get at her because of her money. Even as far along as the Last Chronicle, she's trying to help people achieve something good. I really like her!
I read Framley Parsonnage recently, and really enjoyed Martha Dunstable’s storyline and the direction it took, and was just disappointed there wasn’t a lot more of her. She is such a likeable character. Funny, self-aware, generous. And her situation is really interesting, as you say. I think there’s also a sense she risks succumbing at one point, not so much to a predatory man, as the temptation to use her great riches to boss other people around too much, and so lose herself. As I say, just wish Trollope had gone further with it, but I guess wanting more of something is praise really.
I think that losing herself IS the big risk. And Trollope clearly thinks that he has fixed that by the end of Framley Parsonage ... not sure if I would agree with his prescription in all cases, but she seems happy by the time we get to the Last Chronicle of Barset ...
Thanks for this post, and I look forward to reading the next two installments!
On the Cinderella side, have you read Daniel Deronda? Both Gwendolen Harleth and two Jewish women in the book face the choice of marrying for money or possibly falling into disrepute, or worse.
I have read it, but not recently, and I don't remember this! Could you write a Substack note on it? Or another comment here? I'm sure people would love to learn more about this story. I was thinking to come back to it and talk about non-Jewish writers in the 19th century who try to write sympathetically about Jews - and about how that often doesn't work.
Having just finished Trollope's Phineas Finn, the character of Madame Max Goesler naturally makes me think of non- or anti- Cinderella characters -- as she is a rich woman who sort of pursues Phineas, indeed proposing that she marry him so that he will have her money. And she is (possibly?) Jewish, and her first husband surely was, and, well, Trollope treats her with sympathy but I don't think he avoids some vaguely anti-Semitic tropes (though those could be ascribed to the real way that society would have regarded her then.) Anyway, I wondered if you would be treating Trollope in that potential post? (And, yes, I am aware that Madame Max is a very important character in Phineas Redux as well -- which I have not yet read.)
Well, it's interesting - both George Eliot and Dickens tried to write novels that overcame antisemitic tropes but were, in my view, unsuccessful. Sadly, as to Trollope, I don't think he ever wanted to do that - he just repeated the antisemitic sentiments that were washing all around him without much criticism. In The Way We Live Now, it is true that there is a Jewish character who is represented as very upright and honorable, which I guess I should feel grateful for - but he is nonetheless described as "a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very bright black eyes, which were, however, set too near together in his face for the general delight of Christians. He was stout;—fat all over rather than corpulent,—and had that look of command in his face which has become common to master-butchers, probably by long intercourse with sheep and oxen."
It's not a Victorian novel, though published only a few years after Victoria's death, but Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth has a major Jewish character who is definitely treated in an anti-Semitic fashion. And by all accounts Wharton shared those feelings. But despite that she actually makes him sympathetic, or at least someone we feel for, because she makes it very clear that whatever shortcomings there seem to be in Simon Rosedale's character are there in great part because of his resentment of society's crude prejudices. I don't know if that's a great artist overcoming (to an extent) her prejudices, or just my romantic 21st Century reframing of the situation.
This post reminds me of our mutual friend's mother who used to say to our friend: "you can love a rich man too." Hopefully some of these wealthy women were loved as well as coveted for their riches.
I just finished (re)reading Framley Parsonage with a friend of mine. I read the entire cycle of Barsetshire novels in 2016, but after the reread, I'm going to go back and reread. When I'm not reading Trollope, I forget that I should always be reading Trollope.
Heretical opinion: I prefer him to Dickens.
My view on Dickens vs. Trollope -- Dickens is on the whole the greater writer; but Trollope is the more enjoyable writer. If that makes sense.
It does make sense and I agree completely.
I agree that Dickens is the greater writer - in the sense that his prose is so beautiful that it amounts to blank verse in places. But I think that Trollope is the greater novelist. Sometimes, it feels to me as if Dickens was overly constrained by the form of the novel - and that he would have been a great cinematographer had he been alive when film was invented. He liked to show the inside via the outside, whereas Trollope is always interior to the characters.
Very apposite stumbling across this discussion of women’s legal standing in the 19th century when I am in the middle of reading Federici’s Caliban and the Witch! Miss Dunstable is such a lovely character and the moment you described is so poignant. And thinking of Trollope always makes me think of the excellent Mrs Oliphant who surely deserves to be better remembered. There was a period when Trollope just felt like too much (probably I had just had a glut) and Mrs Oliphant was my antidote.
These are awesome suggestions. I recently read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins which is yet another take on the wealthy being preyed upon. The laws at the time made marriage dangerous.
Yes. I'm planning a post on TWIW for some time this year! It's SO GREAT.
Can’t wait to read what you write. It took me a bit to get into. But then the pages flew.
I've been rereading the Barchester Chronicles this year, writing a Note about each one each month (Framley Parsonage will be up at the weekend), so I was interested in your take on Miss Dunstable. I think in FP Trollope is treading water, he hasn't got as strong a grip on his plot as he had previously, and we lurch from one subplot to the next as if we're walking down the corridor in a wholly anachronistic train carriage (a bit like the Boldini paintings: definitely not Trollopian), eavesdropping on different, unrelated stories happening to people who happen to know each other. Miss D is a reactive character, things happen to her, people batten upon her, and she has not yet (I think) taken the initiative except to become friends with Frank and Mary. I'm much more taken with the pairs that Trollope plays with: the battling mothers, the battling clerical matrons, the young ladies waiting to marry, the clergymen who put their own inclinations above their good sense, etc. I think Mary Thorne is the true Cinderella character, since even she doesn't know about her fortune, and has to be offered for on her own merits, and be brave enough to accept the offer knowing (so she thinks) that she can bring nothing with her.
Yes, Mary Thorne is a true Cinderella. I think that Miss Dunstable is very active, though! She helps Frank stay steadfast to Mary despite considerable opposition; and she's very good at poking at the pretentious people who are constantly trying to get at her because of her money. Even as far along as the Last Chronicle, she's trying to help people achieve something good. I really like her!
This post reminded me of how i used to enjoy reading Trollope. Reading him was often a comfort and pleasure but also profoundly real.
He's my favorite! I lead two book groups on his novels! There's just SO MUCH there!
I read Framley Parsonnage recently, and really enjoyed Martha Dunstable’s storyline and the direction it took, and was just disappointed there wasn’t a lot more of her. She is such a likeable character. Funny, self-aware, generous. And her situation is really interesting, as you say. I think there’s also a sense she risks succumbing at one point, not so much to a predatory man, as the temptation to use her great riches to boss other people around too much, and so lose herself. As I say, just wish Trollope had gone further with it, but I guess wanting more of something is praise really.
I think that losing herself IS the big risk. And Trollope clearly thinks that he has fixed that by the end of Framley Parsonage ... not sure if I would agree with his prescription in all cases, but she seems happy by the time we get to the Last Chronicle of Barset ...
Thanks for this post, and I look forward to reading the next two installments!
On the Cinderella side, have you read Daniel Deronda? Both Gwendolen Harleth and two Jewish women in the book face the choice of marrying for money or possibly falling into disrepute, or worse.
I have read it, but not recently, and I don't remember this! Could you write a Substack note on it? Or another comment here? I'm sure people would love to learn more about this story. I was thinking to come back to it and talk about non-Jewish writers in the 19th century who try to write sympathetically about Jews - and about how that often doesn't work.
Having just finished Trollope's Phineas Finn, the character of Madame Max Goesler naturally makes me think of non- or anti- Cinderella characters -- as she is a rich woman who sort of pursues Phineas, indeed proposing that she marry him so that he will have her money. And she is (possibly?) Jewish, and her first husband surely was, and, well, Trollope treats her with sympathy but I don't think he avoids some vaguely anti-Semitic tropes (though those could be ascribed to the real way that society would have regarded her then.) Anyway, I wondered if you would be treating Trollope in that potential post? (And, yes, I am aware that Madame Max is a very important character in Phineas Redux as well -- which I have not yet read.)
Well, it's interesting - both George Eliot and Dickens tried to write novels that overcame antisemitic tropes but were, in my view, unsuccessful. Sadly, as to Trollope, I don't think he ever wanted to do that - he just repeated the antisemitic sentiments that were washing all around him without much criticism. In The Way We Live Now, it is true that there is a Jewish character who is represented as very upright and honorable, which I guess I should feel grateful for - but he is nonetheless described as "a fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about fifty, with hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark purple colour. The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very bright black eyes, which were, however, set too near together in his face for the general delight of Christians. He was stout;—fat all over rather than corpulent,—and had that look of command in his face which has become common to master-butchers, probably by long intercourse with sheep and oxen."
It's not a Victorian novel, though published only a few years after Victoria's death, but Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth has a major Jewish character who is definitely treated in an anti-Semitic fashion. And by all accounts Wharton shared those feelings. But despite that she actually makes him sympathetic, or at least someone we feel for, because she makes it very clear that whatever shortcomings there seem to be in Simon Rosedale's character are there in great part because of his resentment of society's crude prejudices. I don't know if that's a great artist overcoming (to an extent) her prejudices, or just my romantic 21st Century reframing of the situation.
Well, read it and find out! But the one with better judgment does better than the other - but perhaps the latter doesn't know what she's missing.
I couldn't agree more! I think that Dickens is the greater prose stylist, but Trollope the greater novelist.