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Stephen Wall, Trollope and Character and Other Essays on Victorian Literature

Stephen Wall, Trollope and Character and Other Essays on Victorian Literature

Seamus Perry

(2018)

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Book Details

Abstract

Stephen Wall, ‘Trollope and Character’ and Other Essays on Victorian Literature gathers together the principal publications of the distinguished scholar-critic Stephen Wall. Widely regarded for his writings on the Victorian novel, Wall’s major writings about Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, including the full text of his book-length study Trollope and Character (1988) and a history of Dickens’s reception, are contained in this volume. Also included are Wall’s reflections on Jane Austen and George Eliot and on other aspects of nineteenthcentury fiction, as well as his influential essay on the ways in which English novels should be edited. Together, the essays communicate the mixture of learning, human sympathy, critical intelligence and dry wit that made Wall’s voice so distinctive and trusted.


Seamus Perry is professor of English in the English Faculty at Oxford University, UK, and a fellow of the university’s Balliol College. He is a co-editor of the journal Essays in Criticism, of which Stephen Wall was, for many years, the principal editor. Perry has published books on Coleridge, Tennyson and T. S. Eliot, and articles and essays on various aspects of nineteenth-century English literature.


‘Stephen Wall, “Trollope and Character” (1988) and Other Essays on Victorian Literature’, with an introduction by Nicholas Shrimpton, gathers together the principal publications of the distinguished scholar-critic Stephen Wall. Wall was widely regarded for his writings on the Victorian novel, and this book contains all his major writings about Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, including the full text of his book-length study ‘Trollope and Character’ (1988) and a history of Dickens's reception. Alongside these texts are included Wall's reflections on Jane Austen and George Eliot and on other aspects of nineteenth-century fiction, as well as his influential essay on the ways in which English novels should be edited. Together, the essays communicate the mixture of learning, human sympathy, critical intelligence and dry wit that made Wall's voice so distinctive and trusted.


‘This welcome book collects the work of a master Trollopian and luminous Victorianist in a single volume. With [Wall’s] landmark study of Trollope and Character at its centre […] the collection is indispensable reading for scholars in the field.’
—Lauren M. E. Goodlad, author of The Victorian Geopolitical Aesthetic: Realism, Sovereignty, and Transnational Experience

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover Cover 1
Front Matter i
Half-title i
Series information ii
Title page iii
Copyright information iv
Table of contents v
Preface vii
Introduction: Stephen Wall and Trollope ix
Chapter 1-12 1
Part 1 On Trollope 1
1 The Artist as Philistine 3
2 Trollope and Character 7
I. Living with Characters 7
The Autobiography 7
II. Reappearing Characters 16
(i) Barsetshire Revisited 16
The Warden 16
Barchester Towers 21
Doctor Thorne 26
Framley Parsonage 31
The Small House at Allington 40
The Last Chronicle of.Barset 51
(ii) The Pallisers and Reappearance 67
Can You Forgive.Her? 67
Phineas Finn 86
Phineas Redux 104
The Prime Minister 120
The Duke’s Children 141
Miss Mackenzie 160
III. Recurring Situations 156
(i) Vacillation and Indecision 164
The Belton Estate 165
The Claverings 170
The Eustace Diamonds 174
Ayala’s Angel 183
Cousin Henry 189
(ii) Inheritance and Guilt 192
Orley Farm 193
Lady Anna 204
Ralph the Heir 210
Mr Scarborough’s Family 217
Dr Wortle’s School 223
He Knew He Was Right 226
The Vicar of Bullhampton 242
The Way We Live Now 245
IV. Obstinacy and Insanity 222
V. Character and Authorial Purpose 241
Part 2 On Dickens and Others 259
3 [George Eliot and her Readers] 261
4 Jane Austen’s Judgments 263
5 Dickens: New Words and Old Opinions 267
6 [Dickens and his Readers] 271
Contemporaneous Criticism 271
The Developing Debate 277
Modern Views 279
7 Dickens in 1970 285
8 Annotated English Novels? 297
9 Affective Intentions 303
10 Virtuoso Variations 305
11 Going Beyond the Repertory 309
12 A Little Local Irritation 313
End Matter 319
Index 319