Trollope the Traveller: Selections from Anthony Trollope's Travel Writings

by Anthony Trollope

One of the most popular and beloved writers of the 19th century, Anthony Trollope was also an insatiably curious traveler. He was the quintessential Victorian voyager―adventurous and energetic, with a fine sense of humor and irony―and his career in the General Post Office gave him the opportunity to travel widely. By 1882 he had been twice around the world. These selections from his reports on the West Indies, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and South Africa make for delightful reading, as fresh as when they were written. And they reveal Trollope as a professional and enthusiastic investigator of political, social, and economic conditions. To read his travel writings, suggests Graham Handley, "is to become aware of the character of the man and the qualities which make him one of the most interesting literary personalities of his time. His enthusiasm for life, like his enthusiasm for writing, was uncurbed to the end."

Genres: Travel

286 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day.

Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...

Reviews

[Bob]

Trollope is like baseball: short selections, like single at-bats, don't do him justice. The editor "tried to reflect the many-sidedness of Trollope, and this has meant the inclusion of some sequences which show a particular bias as well as those which have a literary quality, a moral perspective, or both." (p. xxi) The attempt is successful, but the reader does not gain a very good sense of the places visited, and certainly not the pleasure that comes from one of Trollope's novels.

[Rogue Reader]

I've read Trollope's fiction, but wasn't previously aware of his travel writings. As a Victorian era postal employee, Trollope traveled the world writing observations of human oddities, strange lands and foods. A bit strange to read the selections out of context - sometimes I want much more to flesh out the tale.

[Cath Russell]

A perfect introduction to Trollope's writing. Enjoyed this tremendously.