The Small House at Allington

This was the second time we read The Small House at Allington on Trollope-l. The first time occurred between April and June of 1998 and was facilitated by Penny Klein. At that time we had around 50 people on Trollope-l. I have threaded in those postings wherever I could. We returned to the book as part of our Barsetshire Maraton in March of 2000 when the list was nearly 120 strong. This time I had found I had to go away to Bath because I had signed a contract to write a book on Jane Austen and wanted to visit this place so important in her life. I asked people if they wanted to wait until I got back or begin without me but everyone was kind enough to say they'd like to wait So there was a three week break between the time of ending Framley Parsonage and beginning The Small House at AllingtonOnce 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.

On both occasions one of the threads that really galvanized the group was a comparison between The Small House at Allington and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Accordingly I have made a separate section of postings just on this subject which both groups returned to repeatedly. Some of these postings comparing the two novels appear in the regular group read and in the separate section.

There was a lot of participation at this time, and happily it was towards the end of this read that Judy Geater joined us. As a result of the conversation we had during this group read, she decided the group would enjoy reading Elizabeth Gaskell's Cousin Phillis in the summer. She has been a splendid friend and wonderful member of Trollope-l ever since and I have placed the conversation of this small group read on Gaskell's Cousin Phillis here to celebrate her presence.. Other participants of these two group reads included Roger Batt, Elvira Casal, Catherine Crean, Sigmund Eisner,Thilde Fox, Judy Geater,Wayne Glissen, Bart Hansen, Ellen Jordan, Catherine Jordan, Kishor Kale, R. J. Keefe, Penny Klein, Rory O'Farrell, John Letts, Patricia M. Marony, Marcella McCarthy, Carol McGuirk, Howard Merkin, Judith Moore, Michael Powe, Duffy Pratt, Angela Richardson, Bonnie Robinson, June Siegel, Jill Singer, Jill Spriggs, Suzanne Stauffer, Gene Stratton, Tyler Tichelaar, Laurel Tryforos, Andrea Vangor, Judy Warner, Dagny Wilson, Frazer Wright, Todd Yelrom.

I constructed a calendar based on the the first serial publication of The Small House for the Cornhill Magazine which at the rate of three chapters a month and the first edition published by George Smith in 1864 in two volumes. It was during this time I began a habit of describing the original illustrations to the Barsetshire novels while we were reading them.

Volume I

• Introduction: Looking Forward to The Small House: A Fractured Pastoral? Summary of James Kincaid, David Skilton and A A. O. J. Cockshut; The Small House at Allington: Immediate Context, Ceaseless Publication and A Cornucopia of Editions: A Complete History; Barsetshire 5?
• Chapters 1-6 (Instalments 1 & 2): The Small House and Sense and Sensibility Compared; The Small House at Allington, Chs 1-3: Landscapes, Houses, Characters; Amelia and Lily, Parallel Women; Hay; 'Consider the lilies of the field ... ; Adophus Crosbie & the Two Pearls; Widow Dale and Lady Scatcherd; The Ropers and the Lupexes; Croquet Lawns in a Pastoral; The American Evangelist Fundamentalist View; Upon Rereading The Small House; Croquet lawns and haha ditches and Amish Country.
• Chapters 7-12 (Instalments 3 & 4): A Still Turning Point of Decency; Why Do People read About Emotional Cruelty?; Lily Dale and Amelia Sedley; 2 Amelias, 1 Lily and 1 Mrs Lupex; Boardinghouse Letters.
• Chapters 13-18 (Instalments 5 & 6): Letters, Style, & Dickens; Milliners; The Bethrothed Couple; The Question of Lily Dale's Virginity; The Dales and the Ropers and the De Courcys - Morals vs Manners; Ambiguities & Certainties; Lily "has given herself"; The Phrase "Marital Relations" for the Bethrothed Couple; Lily's Attitude: "My love!"; Victorian Women As "Damaged Goods"; Sex and the 19th century novel -- Madame Bovary; Crosbie Meets Mr Harding; Lily Dale and Amelia Sedley; Amelia and Mrs Lupex; Sisters in Literature.
• Chapters 19-24 (Instalments 7 & 8): Trollope's Strengths; The de Courcy Ladies; Sex in The Small House and 19th Century Novels; Social Climbing in Trollope's novels and Adolphus Crosbie's ennui; Social Climbing in Trollope's novels and Adolphus Crosbie's ennui; Between White and Black: Adolphus Crosbie, one of Trollope's Most Interesting Characters; The Cloisters of Barsetshire and Lily Dale: A Talk by John Letts.
• Chapters 25-30 (Instalments 9 & 10): Trollope and the Comforts and Lies of Prudential Fiction; Hating the Victim; Jilting, Noble or Otherwise.

Volume II

• Chapters 1-6 [or 31-36] (Instalments 11 & 12): Trollope at His Best; Public Humiliation; Loss of Face; Tell It to the Marines.
• Chapters 7-12 [or 37-42] (Instalments 13 & 14): Irretrievable Decisions & the Ineluctable Past; The Boyces: There is Something in the Misery of Others which does not displease us; Cradell and the Lupexes; The wonderful Christian Boyces.
• Chapters 13-18 [or 43-48] (Instalments 15 & 16): Why Is Lily Not Angry? Why does she read Carlyle's French Revolution; Varieties of Self-Tormenting; Do we want what we can't have?; Trollope's Perception of Men; Trollope and the American Transcendentalists: Hawthorne's Perception of Trollope; Lily Going Mad Counting the Figures in the Wallpaper.
• Chapters 19-24 [or 49-54] (Instalments 17 &18): Johnny Eames and Lady Julia on the Bridge; Reinventing Maleness: Johnny Eames and Will Belton as Recurring Types; Johnny Eames Variants Grown Old and Seen as More Sensitive: Mr Harding and Mr Whittlestaff; The Small House at Allington: Its Place in the Barsetshire Series.
• Chapters 25-30 [or 55-60] (Instalments 19 & 20): A Conclusion, in which Little is Concluded: Lily and Johnny at Tale's End; The Lighter Side: Hopkins the Gardiner; The Barsetshire novels; Trollope's Reputation and Readership; Trollope v Balzac: Trollope and Family Stories: What Père Goriot is not; The Barsetshire Series Thus Far; Barsetshire: Linking Themes, Religion? The Landscape, Region, Recurring Characters; Trollope and Work; The Tale of Two Offices; Trollope and Today's World Work in Offices and Servants.

Victorian Romance: Trollope, Austen and Gaskell

• Comparisons and Contrasts between Sense and Sensibility and The Small House at Allington: All Participating Group Members from Two Group Reads: Our Themes: On the various comparative details which the two novels exhibit; The Subgenre to which Sense and Sensibility belongs: La Princesse de Cleves to today's Possession; Meredith recognized the parallel between the two books: The Egoist; A Comparison and Contrast of their Art; Many Similiarities between Various Other Novels of Trollope and Austen: The Bertrams and Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Ayala's Angel; The Connections of All These to Wilke Collins's Novel.
• Elizabeth Gaskell's Cousin Phillis: A short summer conversation between people on Trollope-l. Participants included Zubar Amir, Gwyn Bailey, Catherine Crean, Thilde Fox, Judy Greater, Sarah Heidt, Beth J, Kristi Jaliks, Richard Mintz, Richard Mintz, Ellen Moody, Rory O'Farrell, Angela Richardson, Joan Wall, Judy Warner, Dagny Wilson, Mitchell.

About the Illustrations by Millais

• Reproductions of Illustrations with Commentary: 26 Illustrations with brief commentary; Weekly Descriptions and Analysis by Ellen

Burlesques of Romance by Anthony Trollope

• "Never, never, -- Never, never: A Condensed Novel in Three Parts, after the Manner of Bret Harte" (written 1875). The reader will find the complete text of this burleques of A Small House at Allington, as commentary on it by members of Trollope-l.
• "The Gentle Euphemia" (published 1866)

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.