"NEARLY ALTOGETHER BAD"
HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT, by Anthony Trollope; Oxford University Press (Geoffrey Cumberlege). English price, 7/-. "THE little Thackeray," as Trollope was once called, had at least one outstanding virtue, his solidity. Not only did he have the ability always to turn out a good story, he also held the firm conviction that in his Victorian, upperclass England, all was right in the best possible of all worlds. Perhaps that was (continued on next page)
(continued from previous page) a reason for his great popularity then, and for his return to favour now, after nearly half a century of neglect. He Knew he was Right, reprinted in this World’s Classics edition, is in a sense an exception to the Trollopian rule, for it is one of the few novels in which he ventured to doubt. It is a long, "psychological" account of the gradual mental deterioration of Trevelyan, the jealous husband who unjustly suspects that his beautiful young wife is being seduced by their friend, Colonel Osborne. The book is unusually analytical in method, and is distinguished by a masterly subplot concerning the affections of the bride’s sister, Nora Rowley, and handsome Hugh Stanbury. In this section Trollope the craftsman is seen at his most effective, so that altogether it is a puzzle why he should have written in his. Autobiography, "I look upon the story as being nearly altogether bad. I do not know that in any literary effort I ever fell more completely short of my
own intention."
P.J.
W.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19491202.2.33.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 545, 2 December 1949, Page 16
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255"NEARLY ALTOGETHER BAD" New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 545, 2 December 1949, Page 16
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