The Last Chronicle of Barset

It was at the close of June 2000 that our Barsetshire Marathon reached the last of the Barsetshire cycle, The Last Chronicle of Barset. As this was a very long book our conversation stretched across the summer and into the first week of October, Indian summer in Virginia (a beautiful time of year). We had many people posting; at the same time we were reading Cousin Phillis. This was a good summer. Once again each week I wrote an essay or essays in the form of postings to Trollope-l on the chapters we had read for that week. My "facilitating" postings of mine continued to be close readings of the text whenever I could, with some also simply in response to others, some on Trollope's sources and attitudes, some on the contemporary scene. Once again the conversation slowly emerges and moves back and forth on all sorts of things: character, scenes, personal impulses when we read. Participants included Clarissa Ackroyd, Roger Batt, Maureen Bixley, Catherine Crean, Sigmund Eisner, Judy Geater, Ellen Massey, Howard Merkin, Rory O'Farrell, Frank Felsenstein; Wayne Gisslen, Paul Goring, Susan Hankey, Paul Jacob, Kristie Jalicks, Kishor Kale, R. J. Keefe, Mark Jensen, Pat Mahoney, Allen Michie, Susan A. Nash, Rictor Norton, Hugh Osborne, Marian Poller, Michael Powe, Peter Radford, Teresa Ransom, Angela Richardson, Betty Rizzo; June Siegel, Jill Singer, Jill Spriggs, Francis F. Steen, Gene Stratton, Tyler Tichelaar, Bruce Toor, Judy Warner, Joan Wall, Jan Wellington, Dagny Wilson, Andrea Vangor, Amber Vogel, Todd Yelrom. Since people on this and Ms Thompson's list often talked of The Last Chronicle of Barset, I have included postings from people who wrote in about the novel well before this particular read. I also included postings from people on C18-l who answered some of my queries on this book.

I constructed a calendar based on the the first instalment publication of The Last Chronicle of Barset. It was published between December 1, 1866, and July 6, 1867, in weekly sixpenny parts and illustrated by George Housman Thomas. The Last Chronicle of Barset was first published as a book in 1867 (Volume I, March, Volume II, July) by Smith and Elder. In the first edition what had become the Barsetshire series (1878) Francis Arthur Fraser was the illustrator. I did what I could to make our calendar reflect the initial serial and first volumed publication. I also continued my habit of describing the original illustrations to the Barsetshire novels while we were reading this very last rich one.

Volume I

• June 18: Introduction: Publication, What Trollope Said in His An Autobiography; Translations; Linking Themes in Barsetshire Series and Religion; Three Critical Essays; Which Novel by Trollope Have You Reread Most? What is Your Favorite One?; Frequently Reread Books; The Need for a Community and Fathers; Dorchester and Dorsetshire so Barchester and Barsetshire but the title is The Last Chronicle of Barset.
• June 25: Chapters 1-6 (Instalments 1 & 2): As We Begin ... ; Griselda again; The Child who was Still Living; The Missing Children; Missing & Altered Characters; Anthony Trollope's Attitude Towards a Credit Economy; Attitudes Towards the Clergy; Realistic Assessments of Clergy; Crawley and Griselda; The Adamantine Integrity of the Rev. Mr. Crawley; Man and Wife; Transparent Plot Devices; Griselda Again; Reading the books in order and the Crawleys; Griselda/Rosamund Vincy; Griselda Again; Major Grantly and His Father.
• July 2: Chapters 7-11 (Instalments 3 & 4): The Whole Cast Now On-Stage; Miss Prettyman Defends Crawley; Reappearing Characters; Credit and Debt; Skating (which on C18-l morphed into Skating as Socialising, Class and Sexual Activity; Thin Ice; Skating as Socialising, Skating Is for Everyone); Diet; Reverend Crawley's Dilemma; Checks (Cheques); Banking Practices.
• July 9: Chapters 12-16 (Instalments 5 & 6): Strength and Weaknesses; The Real Star of the Series and this Novel: Barsetshire Society; Not one But Two Romans-Fleuves!; The Last Chronicle as a Sequel; Johnny Eames; How old is Lily Dale?; Time scale; Cradell's children; Lily.
• July 16: Chapters 17-22 (Instalments 7 & 8): Encounters; The Unsympathetic Hero; Mr Crawley and the Bishop's Wife, and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Gossip on Romance.
• July 23: Chapters 23-27 (Instalments 9 & 10): Anticipatory; In Defense of Thomas Hardy; Last Chronicle of Barset: The Cathartic Experience; The Sentimental; Artistic Episodes in Trollope; The Reappearance of the Lily and Crosby Plot.
• July 30: Chapters 28-33 (Instalments 11 & 12): The Awkward Foursome; Mr Toogood and the Rev Crawley; Two Somewhat Contradictory Stories; The Conventional Filler-Nature of the Grace Crawley/Major Grantly Story; More on Toogood; The Archbishop and His Son.
• August 6: Chapters 34-38 (Instalments 13 & 14): Wimpy Men and Masochistic Women; Shame and Status in The Last Chronicle; Rev Crawley Crushing the Bishop; Hook Court, Sleazy Money and Near Sex; Idols of the Marketplace; Grace Crawley on the Marriage Market; Grace and Major Grantly as Uninteresting Characters; The Crawley Pride; The "Artist" sub-plot in LCB; A Mention of Lady Glencora Palliser; Trollope and Visual Artists: The Last Chronicle and Ayala's Angel; Grace Crawley as a Plot Device; Enough of Grace Crawley!
• August 13: Chapters 39-43 (Instalments 15 & 16): Three Lawyers: Vholes, Dockwrath and Toogood: A Comparison of Lawyers in Dickens's Bleak House and Trollope's Orley Farm and The Last Chronicle of Barset; Last Chronicle: Reading for Living & Reading for Historical Interest; Grace Crawley on the marriage market; Grace could do better; Henry Grantly and Grace Crawley: Numinousness not Money; Anthropological Studies and Grace; Trollope and the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood; Rev. Crawley the Giant; Grace Again and Proud of Her Man's Love; Lily and Johnnie were lovers?; Velvet Jackets; LCB: A Tempest in a Teacup; Pro-Lily & Anti-Lily.

Volume II

• August 20: Chapters 44-48 (Instalments 17 & 18): Everyone Has Got Something the Matter with Him of Some Kind; Lily as a Portrait of a Real Woman.
• August 27: Chapters 49-55 (Instalments 19, 20, 21): Lily as a Portrait of a Real Woman; Mrs Thorne (rich Miss Dunstable that was); Closings; Obliqueness; Ecclesiastical & Sexual Politics; La Vendée and The Last Chronicle of Barset: Written by the Same Man; Dalrymple/Van Siever/Madalina, or Subplot to Hand.
• September 3: Chapters 56-61 (Instalments 22, 23, & 24): The Importance of Paper: Anonymous and Other Kinds of Letters in the stories of Lily and Johnny Eames and the Rev. Mr. Crawley; Rev. Crawley and Calling Cards; Paper, Greek, and a Rejection of Modern Society; LCB -- "It's dogged as does it"; Crawley and Lily: Tragic Figures; Troubled Individuals; Last Chronicle & Public Shame in Trollope; On Behalf of Dr Tempest; The Ordinary Good Man; Terror at Child Birth and Strong Reluctance to Become a Baby Machine; Fear of Childbirth in Other 19th Century Novels; " "The End of Jael" and "Archdeacon Goes to Framley;" On Lily Once Again.
• September 10: Chapters 62-66 (Instalments 25 & 26): The Death of Mrs Proudie: The End of a Story?; Suicide of Dobbs Broughton and Metaphorical Suicide of Crawley: The End of a Story?; Plans to Do Away with the Bishop?; Josiah Crawley and Samuel Johnson; The Case of Josiah Crawley.
• September 17: Chapters 67-72 (Instalments 27 & 28): The Novel Draws to a Close; Mystery Solved: We Find Out Who Stole The Check; Mrs Arabin as dea ex machina; Mr Toogood's Angelic Sherlock Holmes Act.
• September 24: Chapters 73-78 (Instalments 29 & 30): The Crawleys Escape from Total Shipwreck; Characters with Motivational Life Of their Own; The Characters Explain It to Us; Indications of Popular Culture; The Barsetshire Series as a Whole; Dr. Thorne is still Barsetshire; Trollope's Repetitions.
• October 1: Chapters 79-84 (Instalments 31 & 3): Trollope's Repetitions; The Oxford and Penguin Introductions to Trollope's Novels; Just what does Trollope want us to make of John Eames?; The Significance of the Sorry Mr Eames; The Dyer's Hand and Johnny Eames; The Dyer's Hand and Lily Dale; The Dyer's Hand and Adolphus Crosbie; Popular Prejudice Against the Barsetshire Chronicles; Mr Eames and Frustrated Impulses; Fantasy Wish-Fulfillments & Discomforts; How Very Disagreeable a First Plunge May Be!; Eames's remark about the beating of Madalina; Our Barsetshire group read: What has This Experience Been Like?; Reactions to the Barsetshire Novels as a Whole; Barsetshire: Septimus Harding and Josiah Crawley, Key Linking Characters; Mrs. Proudie, An Enjoyable Figure; Johnny Eames Cuts Out His Initials and Lily's from the Place on the Bridge Where He had Carved them Earlier & Hearbreak; Lily and Barsetshire; Barsetshire: The Women, Movement Across the Novels, & Closure; Bunce Comes to Mr Harding's Funeral; Lily and Barsetshire: Parallel and Echoing Scenes from The Small House and The Last Chronicle; How are we to take John Eames? Redux; Mr Crawley is Conquered; AT at Home in His World; Johnny Eames's comment on beating Madalina; John Eames a parallel to Adolphus Crosbie; Lily Congratulated.

About the Illustrations by George Housman Thomas and Francis Arthur Fraser

• The Novel as Told by Housman through the Pictures: Weekly Descriptions and Commentary by Ellen with responses by Other Members of Trollope-l during the Group Read

• The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1866: Description with a Selection of Reproductions of All 65 Illustrations by George Housman Thomas. A Concise Numbered Description by Ellen Accompanied by the Illustrations.
• The Last Chronicle of Barset, 1878: Description with a Reproduction of 1 out of 8 Illustrations by Francis Arthur Frazer: One of the Finest of the Original Illustrations of Trollope's Novels

Trollope's Apollo

• A Guide to the Classics in the Barsetshire Novels of Anthony Trollope: an informative easy-to-use online guide created by students at Hendrix College and Professor Rebecca Resinski.