A History of English Prose FictionTuckerman, Bayard
History
A History of English Prose Fiction
Tuckerman, Bayard
English fiction -- History and criticism
imagination to continuous labor, but he was able to insure an unending
novelty of conception. In each one of his novels we are introduced to
an entirely new set of characters inhabiting quite unfamiliar scenes.
With a few exceptions, Mr. Anthony Trollope has confined himself to the
novel of English social life, but that mine he has worked with
wonderful assiduity and success. In "The Warden," in "Barchester
Towers," are studies of clerical character for which this writer has
won a special reputation. "The Small House at Allington" is a love
story of particular fascination. Few writers have described the
manifestations of love in the acts and thoughts of a modest, sweet girl
as delicately as Mr. Trollope has done in the case of the deserted
Lily. Her rejection of a second suitor is felt by the reader to be the
inevitable consequence of so pure a passion, and the treachery of
Crosbie is traced through its various gradations with true fidelity to
nature. "Phineas Finn" is an excellent example of a parliamentary
novel. That work and its companions, "Phineas Redux," "The Prime
Minister," and "The Duke's Children," keep up our acquaintance with the
family and connections of Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, than
which few groups of fictitious characters are more continuously
interesting. Mr. Trollope's novels will have a special value for the
future student of English social life in the nineteenth century. The
race-course, the hunting field, the country seat, Piccadilly, Hyde
Park, the life of clubs and parliament, are described by him with
photographic minuteness. And the novel-reader of to-day derives a
constant pleasure from his books, notwithstanding the fact that the
monotony of modern life is somewhat too closely reflected in them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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