6 - Trollope’s Short Fiction

Summary

On November 17, 1858 Anthony Trollope sailed for the West Indies on postal business. The trip, which culminated in his first visit to North America, marked a new phase in his writing career. While in New York he called at the offices of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine and, with an eye ever focused on the financial opportunities afforded by writing, offered to produce several short “tales” for their magazine, thus turning his travels to yet another productive purpose. Trollope had already begun writing non-fiction accounts of his excursions and would use this expedition as a source for The West Indies and the Spanish Main (1859). Harper’s printed two of his stories: “The Relics of General Chasse,” a farce set in 1830s Antwerp, appeared in the February 1860 issue and was followed in August by “The Courtship of Susan Bell,” a love story set in Saratoga Springs, New York. Having found a new outlet for his fiction, Trollope ploughed forward in typically industrious fashion, authoring a total of forty-two stories between 1859 and 1882. His career as a short-fiction writer began after his success as a novelist was well on its way; of his eight novels thus far, The Warden (1855) and Barchester Towers (1857) had lodged Barsetshire firmly in the reading public’s imagination, and Framley Parsonage, the third installment of the series, would appear in 1860 to both critical and popular acclaim.