The Warden (5 page)

Moody, Ellen,
Trollope on the Net
(London, 1999). Chapter 4, on Trollope's thirteen ‘novels in one volume', situates
The Warden
in a group of novellas that, Moody argues, aim at goals and effects quite different from those associated with the longer novels. Among the typical qualities of the shorter books are certain kinds of polemic, satire, romance and pathos. There is an illuminating analogy between
The Warden
, Trollope's first novella, and
An Old Man
'
s Love
, his last; Moody makes a good argument for preferring the latter.

Murfin, Ross, ‘The Gap in Trollope's Fiction:
The Warden
as Example',
Studies in the Novel
14 (Spring 1982), pp. 17–30. Despite appearances,
The Warden
is all about ‘noncompromises' and ‘nonresolutions'. ‘The middle ground is a mirage, a matter of style that is developed to fill the gaps, the wardens' seats.' This argument expands into a consideration of the Barsetshire novels as a series with its own gaps, its own problematic hiatuses.

Overton, Bill,
The Unofficial Trollope
(Sussex, 1982). Overton provides an unusually full account of possible real-life models for the controversy described in
The Warden
. (He cites successively ‘the Whiston matter' in Rochester, the scandal of St Cross in Winchester, the reform of Dulwich College, the mismanagement of a Charterhouse hospital – also covered by Dickens's
Household Words
– Sidney Goldolphin Osborne's letters on Irish relief, the work-in-process of the Ecclesiastical Commission and the Census of 1851.) Overton also emphasizes the unusual literariness of
The Warden
among Trollope's novels, while arguing for the book's largely covert ambition.

Pickering, Samuel, ‘Trollope's Poetics and Authorial Intrusion in
The Warden
and
Barchester Towers
',
Journal of Narrative Technique
3 (1973), pp. 131–40. Pickering argues that Trollope's poetics has its roots in Anglican latitudinarianism, particularly the tradition of sermonizing while telling a fictional tale established by Hannah More's
Cheap Repository Tracts
of the 1790s. The authorial intrusions of
The Warden
illustrate how to combine a sermon and an invented narrative – the synthesis that More's
Tracts
helped to establish.

Sadleir, Michael,
Trollope: A Commentary
(New York, 1947). This is a basic work for readers of Trollope. With respect to
The Warden
, Sadleir provides the original publishing report from Longmans, by J. Cauvin (of which he provides a percipient analysis); he also quotes at length E. A. Freeman's 1882 account of a conversation with Trollope about the models for Barchester and Hiram's Hospital.

Saldívar, Ramón, ‘Trollope's
The Warden
and the Fiction of Realism',
Studies in the Novel
3 (1981), pp. 166–83. Saldívar responds to Henry James's contention that Trollope was a naive realist, mirroring in his novels what he saw around him. On the contrary, Trollope is said to emphasize rhetorical over referential aspects of narrative.

Smalley, Donald,
Trollope: The Critical Heritage
(New York, 1969). Smalley reprints five contemporary notices of
The Warden
, all anonymous. (The
Atheneum
notice is now known to be by Geraldine Jewsbury.) E. S. Dallas's unsigned notice in
The Times
of
Barchester Towers
is also reprinted by Smalley. Dallas
criticizes
The Warden
for its satire of
The Times
; indeed, somewhat bizarrely, he compares Trollope to G. W. M. Reynolds, author of
The Mysteries of London
and other lurid serials.

Stevenson, Lionel, ‘Dickens and the Origin of
The Warden', The Trollopian
2 (September 1947), pp. 83–9. Stevenson links Trollope's satire on Dickens in
The Warden
to an essay in
Household Words
(probably by Henry Morley, rather than by Dickens himself).

Sutherland, John, ‘Trollope,
The Times
, and
The Warden
' in Barbar Garlick and Margaret Harris, eds.,
Victorian Journalism: Exotic and Domestic
(Queensland, Australia, 1998), pp. 62–74. This is a suggestive essay on the genesis of
The Warden
, quarrelling with Trollope's own comments in his
Autobiography
(said to offer the civil servant's ‘classic Whitehall sidestep') and following through on the implications of his alternate account, given to T. H. S. Escott, which emphasizes the shaping influence of a reform campaign in
The Times
.

—,
Victorian Novelists and Publishers
(London, 1976). Chapter 6 is an account of how Trollope ‘made the first rank' among Victorian novelists. Focusing on the years 1858–60, Sutherland provides crucial data about the publishing history of
The Warden
while placing that novel in the larger context of the novelist's early literary career. He confirms Henry James's observation that Trollope's career was distinguished by ‘plain persistence'.

Trollope, Anthony,
Autobiography
(Oxford, 1953, first published 1883). In chapter 5 of his autobiography, Trollope gives his own account of how he conceived and wrote
The Warden
. He remarks that he had been ‘struck by two opposite evils' – abuses by the Church of charitable funds and the ‘undeserved severity' of newspaper attacks on the same abuses. He then concludes that he should not have attempted to critique both these faults simultaneously. Explicitly or not, most subsequent commentary on the novel begins from or circles back towards this self-analysis.

Wall, Stephen,
Trollope and Character
(London, 1988). ‘Being in a dilemma is perhaps the most important recurring situation in Trollope's fiction, and
The Warden
is the first of his novels in
which its possibilities begin to appear.' A highlight of Wall's concise discussion is his account of the chapter ‘A Long Day in London', ‘by far the most absorbing in the novel'.

West, Rebecca,
The Court and the Castle: Some Treatments of a Recent Theme
(New Haven, 1957). In the course of an appreciative treatment of Trollope's fiction, West maintains that the Barchester novels ‘are really novels about the Civil Service, furnished with an ecclesiastical background and trappings.'
The Warden
'
s
weakness is its effort to combine realism and satire; however, West is sympathetic to Trollope's condemnation of overly ruthless reforms.

1815
Battle of Waterloo

Lord George Gordon Byron,
Hebrew Melodies

Anthony Trollope born 24 April at 16 Keppel Street, Bloomsbury, the fourth son of Thomas and Frances Trollope. Family moves shortly after to Harrow-on-the-Hill

1823
Attends Harrow as a day-boy (–1825)

1825
First public steam railway opened

Sir Walter Scott,
The Betrothed
and
The Talisman

Sent as a boarder to a private school in Sunbury, Middlesex

1827
Greek War of Independence won in the battle of Navarino

Sent to school at Winchester College. His mother sets sail for the USA on 4 November with three of her children

1830
George IV dies; his brother ascends the throne as William IV

William Cobbett,
Rural Rides

Removed from Winchester. Sent again to Harrow until 1834

1832
Controversial First Reform Act extends the right to vote to approximately one man in five

Frances Trollope,
Domestic Manners of the Americans

1834
Slavery abolished in the British Empire. Poor Law Act introduces workhouses to England

Edward Bulwer-Lytton,
The Last Days of Pompeii

Trollope family migrates to Bruges to escape creditors. Anthony returns to London to take up a junior clerkship in the General Post Office

1835
Halley's Comet appears. ‘Railway mania' in Britain

Robert Browning,
Paracelsus

His father dies in Bruges

1840
Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Penny Post introduced

Charles Dickens,
The Old Curiosity Shop
(–1841)

Dangerously ill in May and June

1841
Thomas Carlyle,
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History

Appointed Postal Surveyor's Clerk for Central District of Ireland. Moves to Banagher, King's County (now Co. Offaly)

1843
John Ruskin,
Modern Painters
(vol. I)

Begins to write his first novel,
The Macdermots of Ballycloran

1844
Daniel O'Connell, campaigner for Catholic Emancipation, imprisoned for conspiracy; later released

William Thackeray,
The Luck of Barry Lyndon

Marries Rose Heseltine in June. Transferred to Clonmel, Co. Tipperary

1846
Famine rages in Ireland. Repeal of the Corn Laws

Dickens,
Dombey and Son
(–1848)

First son, Henry Merivale, born in March

1847
Charlotte Brontë,
Jane Eyre
; Emily Brontë,
Wuthering Heights
A second son, Frederic James Anthony, born in September
The Macdermots of Ballycloran

1848
Revolution in France; re-establishment of the Republic. The ‘Cabbage Patch Rebellion' in Tipperary fails

Trollopes move to Mallow, Co. Cork

The Kellys and the O'Kellys

1850
Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
In Memoriam

La Vendée
. Writes
The Noble Jilt
, a play and the source of his later novel
Can You Forgive Her?

1851
The Great Exhibition

Herman Melville,
Moby Dick

Sent to survey and reorganize postal system in southwest England and Wales (–1852)

1852
First pillar box in the British Isles introduced in St Helier, Jersey, on Trollope's recommendation

1853
Thackeray,
The Newcombes
(–1855)

Moves to Belfast to take post as Acting Surveyor for the Post Office

1854
Britain becomes involved in the Crimean War (–1856)

Appointed Surveyor of the Northern District of Ireland

1855
David Livingstone discovers Victoria Falls, Zambia (Zimbabwe)

Dickens,
Little Dorrit
(–1857)

Moves to Donnybrook, Co. Dublin

The Warden
. Writes
The New Zealander
(published 1972)

1857
Indian Mutiny (–1858)

Thomas Hughes,
Tom Brown's Schooldays

Barchester Towers

1858
Irish Republican Brotherhood founded in Dublin

George Eliot,
Scenes of Clerical Life

Travels to Egypt, England and the West Indies on postal business

Doctor Throne

1859
Charles Darwin,
On the Origin of Species

Leaves Ireland to settle in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, after being appointed Surveyor of the Eastern District of England

The Bertrams
and
The West Indies and the Spanish Main

1860
Dickens,
Great Expectations
(–1861)

Framley Parsonage
(–1861, his first serialized fiction) and
Castle Richmond

1861
American Civil War (–1865)

John Stuart Mill,
Utilitarianism
. Mrs Beeton,
Book of Household Management

Travels to USA to research a travel book

Orley Farm
(–1862)

1862
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Last Poems

Elected to the Garrick Club

The Small House at Allington
(–1864) and
North America

1863
His mother dies in Florence

Rachel Ray

1864
Elizabeth Gaskell,
Wives and Daughters
(–1866)

Elected to the Athenaeum Club

Can You Forgive Her
? (–1865)

1865
Abraham Lincoln assassinated

Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Fortnightly Review
founded by Trollope (among others)

Miss Mackenzie, The Belton Estate
(–1866)

1866
Eliot, Felix
Holt the Radical

The Claverings
(–1867),
Nina Balatka
(–1867) and
The Last Chronicle of Barset
(–1867)

1867
Second Reform Act extends the franchise further, enlarging the electorate to almost two million

Algernon Charles Swinburne,
A Song of Italy

Resigns from the GPO and assumes editorship of
St Paul's Magazine

Phineas Finn
(–1869)

1868
Last public execution in London

Wilkie Collins,
The Moonstone

Visits the USA on a postal mission; returns to England to stand unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate for Beverley, Yorkshire

He Knew He Was Right
(–1869)

1869
Suez Canal opened

Richard Doddridge Blackmore,
Lorna Doone

The Vicar of Bullhampton
(–1870)

1870
Married Women's Property Act passed

Dickens,
The Mystery of Edwin Drood