Harry Heathcote of Gangoil - Anthony Trollope

After reading Miss Mackenzie last week, I mentioned Catherine Pope's list of her Top Ten Trollopes on her blog, Victorian Geek. I decided to read Harry Heathcote (picture from here) because it's the only one of Trollope's novels set in Australia. Trollope's son, Fred, emigrated to Australia & so Trollope had some first hand knowledge of Queensland where the novel is set. He spent a year travelling around Australia & spent time with Fred on his sheep run.

Harry Heathcote is a young Englishman who has come out to Australia to seek his fortune. He lives at Gangoil, his sheep run in Queensland where he runs 30,000 sheep on thousands of acres leased from the government. Harry is a squatter & he despises the free selectors who have come out & bought land adjoining his. Don't let anyone tell you that Australia is a classless society - at least, it certainly wasn't in the 19th century when convict transportation had not long ended & there was a very definite hierarchy based on your origins. Harry's neighbour, Giles Medlicot, is one of the free selectors. A new chum from England, Medlicot has bought land next to Gangoil & set up a sugar mill where he lives with his mother.

Harry lives at Gangoil with his wife, Mary, her sister, Kate & his two young children. Harry is a proud young man who has made his own way in the world since he was orphaned young.  His manner is rough & imperious, he doesn't suffer fools gladly. His obstinate manner has resulted in bad relations with many of his neighbours & employees. Harry dismisses two of his employees who then go to work for Medlicot. He suspected them of planning to light fires to destroy his land & is furious with Medlicot for employing them. He sees it as a betrayal. It's the middle of a hot summer & only those who live in the bush can really understand how terrifying bushfire can be. Harry fears that he won't be able to keep up his payments on Gangoil if his stock or feed are destroyed. Harry has let his fear of fire become an obsession as he patrols his boundaries every night, accompanied by the few men he trusts.

As well as Harry's dislike of Giles Medlicot, he is contemptuous of his other neighbours, the shiftless Brownbies. A family of ex-convicts, the Brownbies are slovenly & sly, always on the lookout for trouble & usually finding it. Working all day & riding all night on the lookout for fire has left Harry paranoid & exhausted. When Harry discovers a deliberately-lit fire on the boundary of his property with the Brownbies' land, he trespasses on their land to fight the fire & is surprised to be helped by Medlicot. The Brownbies have been joined by Harry's disgruntles ex-employees & a fight breaks out as they discover Harry desperately fighting the fire.

I enjoyed Harry Heathcote of Gangoil very much. The character of Harry was fascinating. I'm not sure that he will ever become more moderate in his judgments & harsh opinions but he did have to reassess his opinion of Medlicot - especially as he has had the temerity to fall in love with Kate. Trollope evoked the bush very well - the loneliness of life on remote stations, the reliance on neighbours, the egalitarian lack of deference of the servants towards their masters. Mary & Kate were important characters in bringing out these aspects of bush life. There's one very tense scene when Harry is out patrolling at night & the women are left alone at Gangoil. They sit out all night on the verandah, nervously watching & waiting. They are also determined to make friends of the Medlicots, not willing to let a personable young man & his mother be strangers when there is little company to be had.

The only mistake I caught Trollope out in was that it wouldn't have been dark at 7pm at Christmas. December is the middle of summer here & it doesn't get dark until 9pm. I did enjoy the Heathcotes & Medlicots sitting down to a hot Christmas dinner, complete with plum pudding, though. Many Australians (including my family) still do that. It's ridiculous but it's a tradition that we just can't break. Harry Heathcote of Gangoil is much shorter than the average Trollope novel - only about 140pp. It's tightly-written, with one main plot & none of the subplots beloved of the Victorian novelist. In his Autobiography, Trollope says that he wrote the novel for the Graphic as a Christmas story in 1873 & was paid £450 for it. I can imagine that it would have been an exciting, almost exotic story to read by an English fireside in the winter of 1873. I found it very enjoyable & I'm looking forward to my next Trollope from Catherine's Top Ten.

Miss Mackenzie - Anthony Trollope

I've been reading a lot of new fiction lately so I was eager to read something from my favourite literary period, the 19th century. Miss Mackenzie had been mentioned a couple of years ago on a BBC radio program on neglected classics as a book that should be reprinted. It was championed by Joanna Trollope, a distant relation of the great Anthony & you can hear what she had to say about Miss Mackenzie here. This is what inspired me to buy this copy from Norilana Books. However, it's quite heavy & I have the complete works of Trollope on my e-reader so I actually read the book that way. I do like the cover of the Norilana edition though.

Margaret Mackenzie is a spinster in her mid 30s. She has spent the best years of her life caring for her parents &, more recently, her invalid brother, Walter. Margaret's two brothers, Walter & Thomas, had inherited money from another relative who hadn't thought it worthwhile to leave anything to a girl. When Walter dies, he leaves everything to Margaret & she suddenly finds herself an heiress. She's not very rich but she has enough to live on & to spread her wings a little. Thomas had used his inheritance to go into trade & is now a partner in a business selling oilcloth. The business isn't very prosperous & Thomas resents the fact that Walter left all his money to Margaret.

Margaret is immediately approached by her first suitor, Harry Handcock. She had been in love with Harry years before & they had planned to marry but Walter feared losing his nurse & Harry faded away. His reappearance now that Margaret has money doesn't recommend him to her & she refuses him. She decides to leave London & move to Littlebath (Trollope's name for Bath), taking Thomas's daughter, Susanna, with her as a companion. Margaret will send Susanna to school & plans to leave her money in her will as a way of helping Thomas's family.

Littlebath society is full of traps for the unwary & a single woman who has lived a retired life must tread carefully. Margaret becomes involved with the circle of an Evangelical preacher, Mr Stumfold, a pompous man with a terrifying wife & an admiring group of ladies to follow him wherever he goes. She becomes friends with Miss Baker &, although she would also like to be friends with Miss Todd, who lives in the same street, she discovers that this isn't possible. Miss Todd is bold & outspoken & therefore not approved of by Mr Stumfold. Mr Stumfold also has a curate, Jeremiah Maguire, a handsome man with the terrible handicap of a squint which is very offputting. Mr Maguire has ambitions that can only be realised if he marries well & he pursues Margaret.

Thomas's business partner, Samuel Rubb, arrives in Littlebath to ask Margaret if she would give the business a loan. Mr Rubb is pleasant, amusing but not a gentleman. He seems to admire Margaret but is she the attraction or is it her money? Then, Margaret is invited to stay at The Cedars, the country house of her relations the Balls. Her cousin, John Ball, is a widower with a large family & his mother plans to make a match between John & Margaret. The Balls & the Mackenzies have been estranged for many years because it was John Ball's uncle who left his money to the Mackenzie brothers rather than to the Balls. John's father, Sir John, has little money & John lives at the Cedars with his parents & his children. Lady Ball despises Margaret but is graciously willing to overlook her dislike if it means getting the Ball money back into her own family.

At this stage, I was genuinely unsure which of her suitors Margaret would favour. She is a quiet, kind, sensible woman but she's no pushover. Her brother's contempt & her sister-in-law's open dislike & resentment don't intimidate her. Her formidable aunt, Lady Ball, can't bully her into marrying John. She's no snob & doesn't see being Lady Ball as a reason to marry a man she isn't sure she can love. She pities his situation & would like to help his children but is that enough? Margaret has a hard time disentangling the motives of her suitors & working out her true feelings. Matters come to a head when her lawyers discover that the money she inherited may not belong to her at all. It may really belong to her cousin, John Ball.

Margaret had refused John's marriage proposal when he was poor & she was rich. Now that she may have no money at all, he realises that he truly loves her & proposes again. This time she accepts him as she does love him. This infuriates Lady Ball who was only prepared to tolerate the marriage if Margaret had money. Then, Mr Maguire, the curate with the squint, arrives to claim Margaret as his bride (he doesn't yet know that she may lose her money). He falsely represents their relationship to Lady Ball who is only too happy to believe him. Mr Maguire's interference threatens to ruin Margaret's happiness, & there are many anxious hours before the truth is told & Margaret can see her way clear to happiness.

Miss Mackenzie is a lovely book with an absorbing plot & wonderful characters. Trollope is always good at clergymen & Mr Stumfold & the truly awful Mr Maguire are among his best clergymen. It's also interesting & unusual, in a book published in the 1860s, to have a heroine who is in her 30s. As Joanna Trollope said in her radio piece, at 36, Margaret is so far back on the shelf as to be completely invisible. But, she's no fool & the three men who come fortune hunting will all find that she's not an easy target. Lady Ball is a tyrannical matriarch & another of Margaret's relatives, Clara Mackenzie, who comes to Margaret's rescue when her money is gone, is kind & loving. Clara is determined that Margaret's highmindedness won't prevent her from achieving the happy ending that she so desires.

I feel quite inspired to read more Trollope now that I'm back in the 19th century. Catherine Pope, on her lovely blog, Victorian Geek, has completed her own Trollope Challenge. She's read all 47 novels & come up with her lists of the ten best & ten terrible Trollopes. Miss Mackenzie doesn't make either list. Of the best, I've read Can You Forgive Her? Barchester Towers & The Way We Live Now. I fancy setting myself the challenge of reading my way through the other seven. Harry Heathcote of Gangoil has an Australian setting & I'm very tempted to start there.

I mentioned above that I have Trollope's complete works on my e-reader. I know I could have got them for free from ManyBooks or Gutenburg but I paid the princely sum of $5AU for them from Delphi Classics. It was much easier to do one download rather than 47 & they're well-formatted & it's easy to get to the book I want. The Delphi editions also often include contemporary biographies of the author as well as all the novels, short stories, poetry (Hardy), non-fiction & plays. I also have the Delphi complete editions of Edith Wharton, Thomas Hardy & Elizabeth Gaskell.

Top 10 Books of 2011 - Non Fiction

It's time for my Top 10 lists of the year. First, Non Fiction. I've read some terrific Non Fiction this year with several of my Top 10 read in the last month. Here's the list, in no particular order. Follow the links to my original reviews.

Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin. A marvellous biography of a complex man. An excellent introduction if you know nothing about Dickens & full of interesting detail for those who have read all the other biographies.

Magnificent Obsession by Helen Rappaport. I knew as I was reading this that it would make my Top 10. Again, there are hundreds of books about Victoria & Albert but Helen Rappaport's deep concentration on the crucial decade from 1861-1871 makes this special.

Memoirs of a Highland Lady by Elizabeth Grant. Along with The Highland Lady in Ireland, these two books provide a memorable portrait of life in Scotland & Ireland in the early 19th century. I was completely absorbed in Eliza's remarkable memories of her childhood & early married life.

Catherine Pope's Victorian Secrets is a wonderful publishing house specialising in reprinting 19th century fiction complete with new Introductions & contemporary reviews. One of the books published by Victorian Secrets this year was Notable Women Authors of the Day by Helen C Black. These interviews with now-forgotten authors are a fascinating insight into the literary life of the 1890s.

Behind Closed Doors by Amanda Vickery was an enlightening & unputdownable journey into the Georgian home. I especially remember the importance of wallpaper - the patterns, the colours were markers of social status. A beautifully illustrated & produced book by Yale University Press. I also loved the TV series of the book, At Home with the Georgians.

The Letters of T S Eliot Vol 2 1923-1825 was a book I'd waited 20 years for. That's how long ago Vol 1 came out. Full of detail about his editing, his struggles to leave the Bank & his worries about the health of his wife, Vivienne, I was fascinated.

An Autobiography by Anthony Trollope. This was one of those serendipitous reading choices that came from reading a review on another blog & taking the book from the tbr shelves where it had sat for far too long. Trollope was such a lovable man & his modesty & surprise at his success are very endearing. If you're interested in how writers write, especially Victorian writers, or in how a man can overcome a desperately unhappy childhood, you need to read this book.

Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence. Again, I picked this from the tbr shelves after reading an obituary of the author in the Jane Austen Society of Australia newsletter. Jon Spence looks at Jane's work through her knowledge of her family history & through her relationships with Tom Lefroy & her cousin, Eliza. A fresh look at a well-known story. This book proves that there are always new angles to explore in any life.

Graven with Diamonds by Nicola Shulman is about Sir Thomas Wyatt & his poetry. Not a conventional biography, Shulman looks at the way Wyatt wrote & how his poetry, with its obscure (to us) allusions, can illuminate the Court of Henry VIII. I love books about the less well-known corners of history & this book taught me about the way poetry was written & read in Tudor times.

Reading Montrose by C V Wedgwood was the result of reading one of Montrose's poems & posting it as a Sunday Poem earlier this month. The comments on the poem inspired me to take this book from the tbr shelves & I discovered a fascinating & ultimately tragic life story.

So, that's the list. If anything, it justifies my overflowing tbr shelves as four of these books had been sitting on the shelves for some years. Tomorrow, my Top 10 Fiction of 2011.

An Autobiography - Anthony Trollope

I pulled Anthony Trollope's Autobiography off the tbr shelves a couple of months ago after reading Elaine's enthusiastic review. But, the moment passed, I went on to other things & eventually Anthony went back to the shelves. Then, last weekend, I read Christine Poulson's review at her blog, A Reading Life, & suddenly I knew what I would be reading that afternoon. I settled down & read almost half the book in one sitting. Reading impulses are like that! I'd read other biographies of Trollope, most memorably, Victoria Glendinning's, but reading about his life in his own words was an absorbing experience. I can only agree with Christine's description of Trollope as "the most lovable of writers."

I admit to rushing through his miserable childhood. My heart ached for the awkward, poor, ignorant, badly dressed, neglected boy who was sent to one dreadful school after the other. His father was a bad-tempered, difficult man with no business sense so the family was often on the edge of ruin. His mother, Fanny, was a formidable woman. She took some of the family off to America to start a bazaar, of all things, to set her son, Henry, up in business. She also wrote a book, Domestic Manners of the Americans, which caused a scandal with its blunt assessments of Americans & their way of life. The book was, of course, wildly popular in England & started Fanny on a career as a writer which kept the family afloat. Neither parent seems to have had much time for Anthony & never seemed to have noticed his misery. The family even had to move abroad to Bruges, where Fanny nursed her dying husband & two children suffering from consumption, all the time writing constantly.

Anthony's fortunes improved when he was employed as a clerk at the General Post Office in London. He got into debt as he struggled to live in London with no family support & earning a little money for the first time. He applied for a job as a Surveyor's Assistant in Ireland, was sent there with dreadful references from his superiors at the GPO but met with success. Living was cheap in Ireland, he enjoyed the work which entailed riding around the countryside planning mail delivery routes & he met with great kindness & hospitality from the local people. He also met his wife, Rose, although we don't get much sense of his family life at all from the book. He mentions children & says he was happy but we hear much more about his literary friends than we do about his family.

As the son of writers, Anthony always had ambitions to be a writer. He thought novels would be easier than poetry or plays (although he did attempt a play which was rejected by a theatre manager. He reused the plot of The Noble Jilt in Can You Forgive Her?) It took some years before he made any money by his pen. His first two novels were published at half-profits & he saw no profits from them at all. His first quiet success came with the publication of The Warden & Barchester Towers. Trollope had a very workmanlike attitude to the writing life. This shocked some of his original readers as his emphasis on writing as a profession rather than a vocation was not what was expected. He writes of his delight in earning his first £100 for Barchester Towers,

I am well aware that there are many who think that an author in his authorship should not regard money,- nor a painter, or sculptor, or composer in his art. I do not know that this unnatural self-sacrifice is supposed to extend itself further. A barrister, a clergyman, a doctor, an engineer, even actors and architects, may without disgrace follow the bent of human nature, and endeavour to fill their bellies and clothe their backs, and also those of their wives and children, as comfortably as they can by the exercise of their abilities and their crafts.

Trollope's descriptions of the tables he drew up at the commencement of each book showing how many words per day he needed to write to finish the book in a certain time; his descriptions of finishing a novel one day & starting a new book the next day, led to accusations that he was nothing but a writing machine, devoid of inspiration. Trollope advises young writers to be disciplined, not waiting for inspiration but writing a set number of words a day. Success means hard work although that doesn't mean that there weren't times when the excitement of his story didn't carry him away from his tables & careful plans,

When my work has been quickest done,- and it has sometimes been done very quickly - the rapidity has been achieved by hot pressure, not in the conception, but in the telling of the story. Instead of writing eight pages a day, I have written sixteen; instead of working five days a week, I have worked seven. I have trebled my usual average, and have done so in circumstances which have enabled me to give up all my thoughts for the time being to the book I have been writing.... And I am sure that the work so done has had in it the best truth and the highest spirit that I have been able to produce. At such times I have been able to imbue myself thoroughly with the characters I have had in hand. I have wandered alone among the rocks and woods, crying at their grief, laughing at their absurdities, and thoroughly enjoying their joy. I have been impregnated with my own creations till it has been my only excitement to sit with the pen in my hand, and drive my team before me at as quick a pace as I could make them travel.

Once Trollope had moved his family back to London, where he felt he needed to be in order to pursue his literary career, he found himself part of a literary milieu that included Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot & George Henry Lewes among many others. He was still working for the GPO & regarded his literary earnings as the cream that allowed him some luxuries like his beloved hunting. He became a member of clubs & associations like the Garrick Club & he enjoyed his popularity with the enjoyment that only a man who remembered a lonely, friendless childhood can enjoy it.

I think that I became popular among those with whom I associated. I have long been aware of a certain weakness in my own character, which I may call a craving for love. I have ever had a wish to be liked by those around me,- a wish that during the first half of my life was never gratified. In my school-days no small part of my misery came from the envy with which I regarded the popularity of popular boys. They seemed to me to live in a social paradise, while the desolation of my Pandemonium was complete... My Irish life had been much better. I had had my wife and children, and had been sustained by a feeling of general respect.... It was not till we had settled ourselves at Waltham that I really began to live much with others. The Garrick Club was the first assemblage of men at which I felt myself to be popular.

What a disarmingly honest & touching thing to have written. Although Dickens's childhood was just as miserable & he was just as much an outsider, I can't imagine him ever writing anything so revealing about his feelings.

Trollope writes a lot about his method of writing, his relations with publishers & his opinions of other writers of the period. I found all this fascinating. His appraisals of Dickens, Eliot & Thackeray are so interesting. He doesn't seem to be a big fan of Charlotte Brontё (although he does admire the second volume of Jane Eyre set at Thornfield) but I was amused & surprised at this perceptive comment about Villette, "The character of Paul... is a wonderful study. She must herself have been in love with some Paul when she wrote the book..." Charlotte's unrequited love for M Heger had not, of course, been mentioned in Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte & her letters to him would not be published until 1913.

This is such a good-humoured book. Trollope was writing near the end of his life, although he still had many books to publish. He left the manuscript (written in 1878) to his son, asking that it be published, unchanged, after his death. Trollope died in 1882 & the Autobiography was published the next year. Although Trollope had listed all the books he'd written at the end of the manuscript, his son could add another 13 titles published in the last 4 years of his life! Prolific, indeed. I've read quite a few of Trollope's novels but there are a lot more to read. I've been hoarding the last two Palliser novels for a few years now, not wanting to reach the end but I think I need to read The Prime Minister very soon.