Victorian

4 primary works

Sir Harry Hotspur

by Anthony Trollope

Published 1 October 1992

Dr. Wortle's School

by Anthony Trollope

Published 1 October 1989

Mr Peacocke, a Classical scholar, has come to Broughtonshire with his beautiful American wife to live as a schoolmaster. But when the blackmailing brother of her American first husband appears at the school gates, their dreadful secret is revealed, and the county is scandalized. In the character of Dr Wortle, the combative but warm-hearted headmaster, who takes the couple's part in the face of general ostracism, there is an element of self-portrait. There are echoes, too, in Wortle's gallantry to Mrs Peacocke, of Trollope's own attachment to the vivacious Bostonian, Kate Field.

With its scathing depiction of American manhood, its jousting with convention and its amiable, egotistical protagonist, Dr Wortle's School(1879) is one of the sharpest and most engaging of Trollope's later novels.

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Doctor Wortle's School

by Anthony Trollope

Published December 1984

Trollope's most "subversive" novel, this is a wide-ranging condemnation of group morals, collective prejudice and the devastating power that conventional values have upon well intentioned individuals.

Harry Heathcote of Gangoil

by Anthony Trollope

Published November 1986

Based on the experiences of Trollope's son Frederic, Harry Heathcote of Gangoil deals with the problems facing a young sheepfarmer, or `squatter', in outback Australia. Using the conventions of the Christmas story, established by Dickens in the late 1840s, the novel shows Harry Heathcote thwarting the envious ex-convict neighbours who harbour his disgruntled former employees and who attempt to set fire to his pastures. Trollope draws heavily on his knowledge of the social and economic conditions of bush life acquired during a year-long visit to Australia in 1871-2. He also indulges in a little wishful thinking on his son's behalf, allowing the spirit of Christmas to produce solutions to some of Harry Heathcote's most pressing problems which Fred Trollope would hardly have dared dream of, let alone seriously expect. This book is intended for general readers, Trollope fans, Australian Trollope fans in particular, students of Victorian or 19th century fiction or history.