Kept in the Dark

Anthony TROLLOPE (1815-1882), was born in London. His father, a fellow of New College, Oxford, failed both as a lawyer and as a farmer. The family s poverty made Trollope miserable at school, and when financial difficulties became acute, the family moved to Belgium, where Trollope s father died. Mrs Frances Trollope has already begun to support the family through her career as an author. Trollope became a junior clerk in the General Post Office in London in 1834, but only began to make any professional progress when transferred to Ireland in 1841. He resigned from the Post Office in 1867, and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Liberal in 1868. His literary career began with the appearance of "The Macdermots of Ballycloran" (1847). "The Warden" (1855) was the first of the "Barsetshire" series. The Barset novels are interconnected by characters who appear in more than one of them, and Trollope developed this technique in his second series, known as the "Political" novels. His popularity was at its peak during the 1860s; readers admired his treatment of family and professional life, the variety and delicacy of his heroines, and the photographic accuracy of his pictures of social life.