The Small House at Allington (Chronicles of Barsetshire, #5) in Exploring Anthony Trollope

Jul 29, 2018 Jane rated it really liked it

I don’t think that I have ever found two consecutive books in a series as different as ‘Framley Parsonage’ and ‘The Small House at Allington’.

‘Framley Parsonage' was bursting at the seams with everything that Trollope loved and did well – church and parliament, town and country, romance and finance – and it was a wonderfully vibrant book that built a world that I could have happily gone on living in after the final page was turned.

I explained the structure and the appeal of that book like this:

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Nov 19, 2019 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: hoopla, british, bricks, 2019, owned, yt-recs, classics, audible, love-stories

4.5 stars. I absolutely loved nearly every page of this book. There was one subplot I didn't love, which took place not in the country, but in London, and involved a few unlikeable characters. So it loses half a star.

However, I can highly recommend this series and this author. He is becoming a favorite, and I'm ready to move on to the last book in the series. He excels at characterization. I know these people so well, I could pick them out in a crowd. I always want more, more, more because they ...more

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Jul 12, 2019 Eddie Clarke rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, any-amount-of-books, fiction

This is such an odd book: most peculiar! I wonder if anyone has written about its bizarre flouting of all good Victorian novelist rules? Despite that, it’s clearly been tremendously popular since it was written.

I’m reading my way through Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles (this is book 5 of 6). The thing is, he definitely did not set out to write a series in advance and the whole enterprise is rather contingent and organic. You can see him setting himself technical challenges in each book - ‘Framl This is such an odd book: most peculiar! I wonder if anyone has written about its bizarre flouting of all good Victorian novelist rules? Despite that, it’s clearly been tremendously popular since it was written.

I’m reading my way through Trollope’s Barchester Chronicles (this is book 5 of 6). The thing is, he definitely did not set out to write a series in advance and the whole enterprise is rather contingent and organic. You can see him setting himself technical challenges in each book - ‘Framley Parsonage’ (4) is a virtual re-run of the plot of ‘Doctor Thorne’ (3), the preceding novel, with a couple of elements altered and some characters inverted. So when he got to ‘Small House’ (5) I assume he was rebelling against the tyranny of the Victorian marriage plot and instead wanted to write a thwarted romance, which we get here.

A thwarted romance gives him lots of new narrative elements to play around with. Our heroine, Lily Dale, spirited and loving but perhaps a little too rigid in her mindset for her own good, is jilted by her fashionable fiancé Adolphus Crosbie - a ‘swell’ and an ambitious civil servant on the make - who instead marries into the aristocracy. A great deal of the joy of this novel is watching Trollope invent ever more imaginative ways of humiliating him in punishment. In one of the novel’s major set pieces, he is thrashed on the platform of Paddington station (in front of the WH Smith kiosk) by his (ex) rival for Lily’s hand, lowly civil service clerk Johnny Eames. But his major punishment comes via his new aristocratic in-laws and wife, a veritable horror show explored in excruciating comic detail. It’s really interesting how Trollope clearly telegraphs the marriage has sexual problems too, despite carefully respecting all the Victorian literary taboos.

The whole eager young new Londoner setting out on their career in the metropolis is another novel area for Trollope to explore in the context of this series, and perhaps signals Trollope is growing bored of writing about clergy and the committed rural types of Barsetshire.

In this respect, I was very struck by how much of the social analysis of this novel is so relevant to today’s London. ‘A Small House’ is in the title, and Trollope pays sharp attention to issues surrounding the mid-Victorian property market. His decent young countrymen starting their careers in town are forced by high rents into dubious lodging houses in marginal areas crowded with all kinds of moral hazards. Even the relatively more financially secure Crosbie and his new wife Lady Alexandrina end up in an unsatisfactory, badly built and cramped abode - albeit in an achingly fashionable area just off Hyde Park: the Victorian equivalent of today’s property-speculator built “luxury apartments”. One can laugh at Crosbie’s pretensions, except Trollope shows it’s no joke - when Lily Dale and her mother at one point decide to move from the socially supreme ‘Small House’ at Allington into a village cottage, it is painfully clear from their own and their neighbours’ points of view they are falling catastrophically down the social scale, despite suffering no commensurate financial setback.

Lots to think about and enjoy in this novel, but one should always remember Henry James said Trollope’s novels were “big baggy monsters” and as big baggy monsters go this is one of the biggest and baggiest. Huge fun though. ...more

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Apr 24, 2011 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: kindle, 5-star-reads, author-trollope, classics, barsetshire

This might be my favorite of the series so far - and only one to go. There were several romantic interests in this, though it would be a stretch to call it a romance.

Trollope tells us at the beginning that this has not a single hero, that duty will be spread amongst several. My favorite was John Eames, still in his hobbledehoy boyhood. A new word for me - hobbledehoy.

It was this very awkwardness that made the novel so endearing. Two males in this novel - one young, one mature - who were awkwar ...more

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Oct 05, 2019 Trisha rated it it was amazing

This is the fifth novel in Trollope’s Barsetshire series, first published from 1855 through 1867. Here he introduces one of his most popular heroines, Lily Dale, along with several other beloved characters including Johnny Eames, Plantagenet Palliser and his wife Lady Glencora who show up in the next novel as the Duke and Duchess of Omnium. Several other familiar faces from previous novels show up here as well, including the aptly named Lady Dumbello.

I have always loved Trollope despite how much This is the fifth novel in Trollope’s Barsetshire series, first published from 1855 through 1867. Here he introduces one of his most popular heroines, Lily Dale, along with several other beloved characters including Johnny Eames, Plantagenet Palliser and his wife Lady Glencora who show up in the next novel as the Duke and Duchess of Omnium. Several other familiar faces from previous novels show up here as well, including the aptly named Lady Dumbello.

I have always loved Trollope despite how much his female characters annoy me and Lily Dale is at the top of that list. Unfortunately it’s hard to ignore her since she has a starring role in this story. She and her sister Bell together with their widowed mother live rent free in the Small House at Allington near their bachelor uncle and Squire who lives in the estate’s main house. When the squire’s nephew introduces his social climbing friend Adlophus Crosbie to the family, Lily falls in love with him. Assuming she will be provided with a generous fortune from the squire upon her marriage, Adolphus talks himself into getting engaged to her. But he quickly regrets his decision upon learning that there will be no money involved. So he heads to a fashionable house party for the weekend where he promptly proposes to Lady Alexandrina de Courcy believing she will be a better match for him. Meanwhile poor jilted Lily spends the rest of the novel professing her deep love for him even though it is apparent to everyone that she is much better off without him and would be happier with Johnny Eames who despite being what Trollope affectionately dubs a “hobbledehoy” has always loved her (although it’s hard to understand why.)

Ordinarily I’d quickly abandon a book whose 19th century plot revolved around such an insipid protagonist and it’s interesting to note that even Trollope disliked Lily in spite of having invented her!

But I don’t read Trollope for his plots. There’s so many other things to love about him because of the way he writes –often inserting himself and his opinions directly into the narrative as if he is putting down his pen for a moment to gossip about his characters or excuse their foibles. Like other 19th century writers he takes his time (probably because he was writing for serialization and there was more money that way) and sometimes his lengthy descriptions get a bit tedious. But he’s wonderfully warm, witty and downright hilarious in places with a deep understanding of human nature and a genuine warmth that comes across again and again in the way he treats his characters – even when they’re less than likable.

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Jan 21, 2022 Tom Britz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I had become accustomed to automatically giving Anthony Trollope a five-star rating, but this one just didn't sit well for me. There were times I wanted to scold Lilly for being a whiny bitch and the person I was rooting for throughout the length of this long novel just gets dumped by Trollope before the last chapter. As usual, Trollope gives the reader characters to care about, but in this one there seemed to be an overabundance of what was needed. This is the first novel in the Barchester seri ...more

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Feb 22, 2015 Joseph rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I found this fifth book in the Chronicles to be a little more bittersweet than the first four. No spoiler alerts here, but let's just say that the plot probably reflects the messy way that life actually turns out in reality, rather than the neat, tie-everything-up-with-a-bow manner in which some authors end their novels.

As with all of the Trollope I've encountered so far, this one was well worth the time. ...more

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