Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:40:02.124Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ADVANCED CONSERVATIVE LIBERALISM: PARTY AND PRINCIPLE IN TROLLOPE'S PARLIAMENTARY NOVELS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2010

David M. Craig
David M. Craig*
Affiliation:
Durham University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When, on 17 November 1868, Anthony Trollope came bottom of the poll at Beverley in Yorkshire, his cherished ambition to become a Liberal MP was at an end. He had advocated the key elements of the liberal program – Irish Church disestablishment and national education – but this mattered little in a notoriously corrupt borough which was shortly to be stripped of its representation (Tingay). He later explained in his Autobiography (1883) that since he was deprived of a parliamentary seat, he instead used characters in his fiction “for the expression of my political or social convictions . . . they have served me as safety-valves by which to deliver my soul” (112–13). This reflection starkly conveys the sense of a man literally bursting with opinions, but it sits oddly with the common view of critics that Trollope's parliamentary novels depicted political life primarily in social terms; that unlike Disraeli he was not especially interested in exploring issues and testing convictions; and that he had “very few political ideas” (Brantlinger 209).

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , September 2010 , pp. 355 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

apRoberts, Ruth. Trollope: Artist and Moralist. London: Chatto and Windus, 1971.Google Scholar
Beales, Derek. “Parliamentary Parties and the ‘Independent’ Member, 1810–60.” Ideas and Institutions in Victorian Britain. Ed. Robson, Robert. London: Bell, 1967. 1–19.Google Scholar
Berger, Courtney C. “Partying with the Opposition: Social Politics in The Prime Minister.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 45 (2003): 315–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brantlinger, Patrick. The Spirit of Reform: British Literature and Politics, 1832–1867. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butte, George. “Review: John Halperin, Trollope and Politics.” Victorian Studies 21 (1977–78): 519–21.Google Scholar
Butte, George. “Trollope's Duke of Omnium and ‘The Pain of History’: A Study in the Novelist's Politics.” Victorian Studies 24 (1981): 209–27.Google Scholar
Cockshut, A. O. J.Anthony Trollope: A Critical Study. London: Collins, 1955.Google Scholar
Collini, Stefan, Winch, Donald, and Burrow, John. That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth Century Intellectual History. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dicey, Edward. “Our Programme for the Liberals.” Saint Pauls Magazine 1 (1867–68): 659–74.Google Scholar
Durey, Jill Felicity. Trollope and the Church of England. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Escott, T. H. S.Anthony Trollope: His Work, Associates, and Literary Originals. London: John Lane, 1913.Google Scholar
Hagan, John. “The Divided Mind of Anthony Trollope.” Nineteenth Century Fiction 14 (1959): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halperin, John. Trollope and Politics: A Study of the Palliser and Others. London: Macmillan, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, Angus. “‘Parliamentary Government’ and Victorian Political Parties, c. 1830-c. 1880.” English Historical Review 104 (1989): 639–69.Google Scholar
Hughes, Robert“‘Spontaneous Order’ and the Politics of Anthony Trollope.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 41 (1986): 32–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, T. A.Parliament, Party and Politics in Victorian Britain. ManchesterManchester UP, 1996.Google Scholar
Jones, H. S.Victorian Political Thought. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000.Google Scholar
McMaster, Juliet. Trollope's Palliser novels: Theme and Pattern. London: Macmillan, 1978.Google Scholar
Nardin, Jane. “The Social Critic in Anthony Trollope's Novels.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 30 (1990): 679–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parry, Jonathan. The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain. New Haven: Yale UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Searle, G. R.Country Before Party: Coalition and the Idea of National Government in Modern Britain 1885–1987. London: Longman, 1995.Google Scholar
Taylor, Miles. The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847–1860. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tingay, Lance O. “Trollope and the Beverley Election.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 5 (1950): 23–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tracy, Robert. Trollope's Later Novels. Berkeley: U of California P, 1978.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. An Autobiography. 1883. London: Trollope Society, 1999.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Barchester Towers. 1857. London: Trollope Society, 1995.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Can You Forgive Her? 1865. London: Trollope Society, 1989.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “Characters and Criticisms. By James Hannay.” Fortnightly Review 2 (1865): 255–56.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “Cicero as a Politician.” Fortnightly Review 21 (1877): 495–515.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Doctor Thorne. 1858. London: Trollope Society, 1996.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. The Duke's Children. 1880. London: Trollope Society, 1991.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. He Knew He Was Right. 1869 London: Trollope Society, 1994.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “The Ideas of the Day on Policy. Charles Buxton.” Fortnightly Review 3 (1865–66): 650–52.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “Introduction.” Saint Pauls Magazine 1 (1867–68): 1–7.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “The Irish Church.” Fortnightly Review 2 (1865): 82–90.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “The Irish Church Bill in the Lords.” Saint Pauls Magazine 4 (1869): 540–55.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “The Irish Church Debate.” Saint Pauls Magazine 2 (1868): 147–60.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Lord Palmerston. London: Isbister, 1882.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “Mr. Disraeli and the Dukes.” Saint Pauls Magazine 6 (1870): 447–51.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land Bill.” Saint Pauls Magazine 5 (1869–70): 620–30.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “The New Cabinet, and What It Will Do For Us.” Saint Pauls Magazine 3 (1868–69): 538–51.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. The New Zealander. Ed. Hall, N. John. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1972.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Phineas Finn: The Irish Member. 1869. London: Trollope Society, 1989.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Phineas Redux. 1874. London: Trollope Society, 1990.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. The Prime Minister. 1876. London: Trollope Society, 1991.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “Public Schools.” Fortnightly Review 2 (1865): 476–87.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. Ralph the Heir. 1871. London: Trollope Society, 1996.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. The Small House at Allington. 1864. London: Trollope Society, 1997.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. The Three Clerks. 1859. London: Trollope Society, 1992.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. The Way We Live Now. 1875. London: Trollope Society, 1992.Google Scholar
Trollope, Anthony. “Whom Shall We Make Leader of the New House of Commons?” Saint Pauls Magazine 1 (1867–68): 531–45.Google Scholar
Wall, Stephen. Trollope and Character. London: Faber, 1988.Google Scholar