In this engrossing book C.P. Snow, one of the foremost living English novelists and public servants, writes about a great nineteenth-century English novelist who also was a man of affairs. Anthony Trollope wrote forty-seven novels, including the famous Barsetshire and Palliser series; he was widely read in his time, and his work was admired by Tolstoy and Henry James. Since his death in 1882 he has always had a loyal following, but now, finally, he is becoming recognized as a major figure in English literature.

After a painful childhood and youth – “more loving than loved” – Trollope found his way in his twenties and went on to become a man of consequence in the British civil service. In his official role he travelled the world – coming to understand the United States better than most of his contemporaries. C.P. Snow’s brilliant portrait gives us the robust and gregarious Trollope, successful and happily married, and underneath a sensitive, complex man.

Trollope’s miserable childhood surely helped to shape the novelist who, according to C.P. Snow, was the finest natural psychologist in nineteenth-century English fiction. The author breaks with the traditional view of Trollope as merely a social historian. He had the rare gift of percipience, Lord Snow says in his fascinating examination of Trollope’s art. Large in his achievement was the remarkable understanding of women he brought to his novels.

This sumptuously illustrated book, written with such penetrating intelligence, verve and wit, will delight Trollope fans and create new ones. As absorbing as a good novel Trollope is the finest sort of tribute one novelist could pay another.