Trollope-l: Trollope and His Contemporaries (A Discussion List)


F. A. Fraser, "It's Dogged as Does It", The Last Chronicle of Barset

Trollope-l (to subscribe click here) is comprised of people from different backgrounds who come together to read with and to write to one another about Anthony Trollope. Michael Powe is listowner; Ellen Moody and Jill Spriggs are the moderators. Michael founded the list in October 1997; it has been on several servers and is now located at Yahoo. The terrain of Trollope-l is the life and writing of Anthony Trollope in the context of everything to do with the long 19th century (1815-1914). We discuss the life and writing of other British, American, and European writers, this long era's music and art, history, politics, and science, and later literature and art about it (including modern films, historical novels, and biographies). The list is intended to be an informal cyberspace seminar on Trollope and the long 19th century. Our aim is to learn and to support one another as a community in our literary endeavours.

Here, first, are some pictures of a few members of Trollope-l:

  • Photographs from the Trollope-l trip to England in November 1999:

    • Here are pictures of those members of the group who went to a November Lecture given by Ellen Moody to the Trollope Society at the Reform Club, and then spent a day together visiting Salisbury Cathedrale. The reader will also find photographs of the houses said to be the those upon which Trollope modelled the Bedesmen's house and Mr Harding's Warden's Resident as well as Salisbury Cathedrale and a medieval pub where we adjoined for tea

Off-Topic Postings about Ourselves, Meetings We Had, Friendships:

Since October of 1997, members have read and discussed:

Trollope-l is now beginning a second Barsetshire marathon.

  • A small group of people are rereading all six Barsetshire novels in chronological order. Thus far we've finished The Warden and Barchester Towers . We are now up to Dr Thorne and Framley Parsonage. We'll conclude with The Small House at Allington and The Last Chronicle of Barset.

    • Here is our schedule for winter and spring of 2006:

    Dr Thorne

    Feb 5th: Chs 1-7: Ellen
    Feb 12th: Chs 8-14: Leslie
    Feb 19th: Chs 15-21: Martin
    Feb 26th: Chs 22-28: Adele
    Mar 5th: Chs 29-35
    Mar 12th: Chs 36-43

    Mar 19th: Chs 44-47: Sig

    Then Framley Parsonage Mar 26th: Chs 1-6 (Instalments 1&2): Martin
    Apr 2nd: Chs 7-12 (Instalments 3&4): Leslie
    Apr 9th: Chs 13-18 (Instalments 5&6): Ellen
    Apr 16th: Chs 19-24 (Instalments 7&8)
    Apr 23rd: Chs 25-30 (Instalments 9&10): Adele
    Apr 30th: Chs 31-36 (Instalments 11&12)
    May 7th: Chs 37-42 (Instalments 13&14)

    May 14th: Chs 43-48 (Instalments 15&16): Sig

    May 21st: begin The Small House at Allington

  • We then will read and discuss in the following order four of the lesser known novels we have not yet read and discussed: The Bertrams (1858), The Golden Lion of Granpère (1867), Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (1868) and Marion Fay (1878).

Of the 13 novellas, we will have yet to read in a group setting: Cousin Henry, Kept in the Dark, and The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson.

For our second alternating track where we read Trollope's short stories and non-fiction, and books by other 19th century people (1900-1914) and modern works on the long 19th century. We have decided for the month of February to read any book by John LeCarre (as a comparison to Anthony Trollope).

The reader will find in the following documents a record of the conversations members of Trollope-l have had on Trollope's fiction and non-fiction. They are set up in chronological order and keyed to the chapters in Trollope's books so that they take the form of a story of reading experiences exchanged, debated, and meditated on specific texts over a course of weeks or months. Read in consecutive order they form close readings of the texts in question.

Essays and Postings on Anthony Trollope's Short Stories By members of Trollope-l:

  • Trollope's Short Stories

    • (1997-98)

    • Tales of All Countries
    • Of Love, Courtship, and Marriage
    • Irish Tales
    • Christmas Stories
    • Archibald Green Stories
    • Burlesques
    • An Editor's Tales

Essays and Postings on Anthony Trollope's Novels by members of Trollope-l:

Essays and Postings on Anthony Trollope's Non-Fiction By members of Trollope-l:

Michael Powe's Website, trollope.org (1997-98), includes selections of postings, threads, and essays from group conversations on

  • The Barsetshire Chronicles: Barchester Towers, Dr Thorne, The Vicar of Bullhampton, The Way We Live Now, and the completed unedited discussions of The Claverings, He Knew He Was Right, and An Autobiography (upon which Chapters 2, 5 and 8 were partly based);
  • Trollope's short stories;
  • Trollope's Family and Reputation, Biographies, and his Freemasonry

Ellen Moody's Trollope on the Net is in part a history of a series of group reads she and Michael Powe participated in on a mailing list run by Elizabeth Thomson which was simply called the Trollope list and ran on Majordomo software (its successor, which has a different listowner, may be found on yahoo.com). The book partly tells the story of the reads and discussions that occurred there between 1995 and 1997 of The Macdermots of Ballycloran, He Knew He Was Right, The Claverings, Lady Anna, An Autobiography, and Can You Forgive Her? in the context of the Palliser cycle treated as as roman fleuve. It also includes separate interwoven chapters on all Trollope's Irish fiction, his novellas (including Kept in the Dark, Nina Balatka, The Golden Lion of Granpère, The Fixed Period), the original illustrations to Trollope's novels and autobiography considered as a genre related to fiction and as practised in the 19th century.


Hablôt Browne (Phiz), Can You Forgive Her?

A Few Rules of the Game

In order to prevent discomfort, hurt feelings, trolling, flame wars and other disruptions on our list, to secure the courteous and cordial atmosphere we desire for all, and to ensure that this list remains a place where serious semi-scholarly talk be sustained, as moderator I ask everyone who joins the list to read and to abide by the following rules:

  1. The purpose of this list is not a matter for debate. A listowner opens a list with a given subject matter and audience in mind. While this list is meant for all people who love to read and are interested in any and all aspects of 19th century culture, its goal is to have serious discussions of the work of Anthony Trollope and his contemporaries in the context of the culture and history of the 19th century, and of modern scholarship and artistic approaches to it. It is intended for people who feel comfortable discussing Trollope and his contemporaries in depth.
  2. No personal attacks or flame wars. Personal attacks include speculations about the motives, personal problems and/or intellectual deficiencies, background, or educational level of someone else and all veiled taunts and snide remarks.
  3. Please refrain from characterizing the kind of posts someone sends (long, short, high-toned, low-toned, high-, middle-, or low-browed, academic, solemn, intense, stupid, ignorant,simple- minded, deep, angry, using profanity &c &c) with a view to discussing the kind of person the poster is or the kind of postings he or she writes. You can argue with content of the posting as regards Trollope and his contemporaries but not the attitudes of the poster as regards him or herself or the status you imagine the poster to have in "real" life; that is to discuss the listmember. To argue with the kind or nature of a post itself is also to bring in the personality and values of the person posting it. That is why arguing against literary theory always ends in flame wars: to bring this up is to argue against the identity of someone else. The content about our 19th century terrain is fair game, not other members. If a posting is overly long, if someone takes to sending many tiny messages, or if you feel someone has insulted you in some way, get into contact with one of the listowners and she will discuss it with the member offlist.
  4. Similarly, please refrain from categorizing "other groups" of people on the list as different from a group to which the individual presumes he or she belongs -- often such groupings are in the mind of the poster and don't correspond to realities on lists at all. Our list is a diverse place; anyone can join; right now it is made up of teachers, readers and students, readers and people interested in Trollope and his contemporaries, professional and non-professional people. To begin to categorize one another is to invite factionalism and stigmatizing, and takes us down the road to discomfort and reified conflicts between groups
  5. No public corrections of other people's spelling, grammmar, style, tone or other formal failures on list. If you genuinely want to aid someone not to make a mistake, get into contact with him or her offlist.
  6. No one is to discuss anyone else's personality or behavior in front of all the members of the list as if that person weren't there. If you do this, you will be politely told to desist; if you do not desist, you will be unsubscribed. We also ask that members not badger anyone for a reply. If, after you have tried to elicit a reply for a second time, someone does not answer your objection for whatever reason, leave the person alone.
  7. Members are invited to propose reading modern historical novels set in the 19th century and close film adaptations of books by Trollope and all other 19th century writers. Everyone is invited to discuss mention movies, TV adaptations, documentaries and radio or other non-print media which directly relate to our subject matter. But we discourage lengthy discussion of non-print media, movies, TV adaptations, radio shows and famous personalities which have nothing to do with Trollope or the 19th century. This is not meant to be a list for chat and gossip.
  8. No attachments. We have set the list up in such a way as to discard them, but don't try to put one on. Present your message as part of your regular text.
  9. Please use clear subject headings, do not use "spoiler" warnings, and do not simply hit the "reply" key when sending a posting. You can preface a posting warning the reader that your discourse necessitates your telling something from the end of a book the group is reading or details from books the group as a whole has not read. It is assumed that people coming onto Trollope-l have some serious interest in Trollope, that they would want to read his books far more than one time, and much of the talk assumes a familiar knowledge with Trollope's most famous books (the Barsetshire and Palliser ones). In fact, on this list we welcome details from books we have not read, reviews, summaries, critical discussions of things as ways of whetting appetites for further reading ourselves. If you just hit "reply," the header becomes detached from your subject; it also creates a trail of repeats that make the digests into a mess that becomes difficult to read.
  10. No ranting against or bashing authors, characters, art, periods, literary theory, specific books or kinds of books.
  11. Finally, when you post, please sign your name (a given and last name, not an obvious or unreal pseudonym or net handle). This makes it easier for other listmembers to reply and helps build a sense of community and accountability among the members of the list.

Trollope-l archives are located in several places: 1) at Michael Powe's website; and 2)yahoo archives online; 3) through Google; -- plus of course right here!.


Photograph from the 1870s

Page Last Updated: 29 November 2004