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SINCERITY AND REFLEXIVE SATIRE IN ANTHONY TROLLOPE’S THE STRUGGLES OF BROWN, JONES AND ROBINSON

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2015

Matthew Titolo
Matthew Titolo*
Affiliation:
West Virginia University College of Law
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Extract

Despite the recent revival of interest in the works of Anthony Trollope, his short novel The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson has largely escaped serious attention. Trollope called the book a “satire on the ways of trade,” (Autobiography 106) and serialized it in Cornhill Magazine, 1861–62. The novel turned out to be a critical and commercial failure, perhaps because it marked a dramatic departure from the familiar social comedy of Barsetshire novels. Contemporary reviewers called it “coarse,” “odiously vulgar,” and “unmitigated rubbish.” Later readers were no more generous. C. P. Snow judged SBJR “one of the least funny books ever written” and thought Trollope had “perpetrated idiocy. . .” by writing it (95–96).

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 23 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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