Epilogue: Dream and Art

Abstract

As a witness to the character of his time Trollope is both more complicated and more important than has been generally appreciated — except, perhaps, by the common reader. Of course, it is necessary to believe those many contemporary reviewers of Trollope who have certified that his novels accurately represent the manners of the middle decades of Victoria’s reign; such later historians as Asa Briggs have also provided convincing evidence of the fidelity of Trollope’s fictions to life as it was lived in the drawing-rooms and clubs of London, on the hunting fields and in the great country houses — and, for that matter, in many humbler dwellings too. As to his depictions of the inner workings of the Church, of the legal profession, and of Parliament itself, there is much convincing evidence that Trollope knew less, sometimes much less, than those professionals working within the boundaries of their realms. He was plausible but — as he acknowledged in one of the Palliser novels — was necessarily an outsider in these matters; had he been returned for Beverley he might have become a more knowledgeable novelist of politics. But he was not, and it is doubtless the fact that the pages of Hansard reflect more accurately than do any of Trollope’s novels what was happening in the House of Commons in his day.