18 - Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Anthony Trollope

Delve into the captivating life and mind of Anthony Trollope, an iconic figure in literature, through his own words. His autobiography is a rollercoaster of emotions, from side-splitting humor to poignant honesty. Discover the fascinating insights he provides on his unique approach to writing, viewing it more as a labor than a form of art. Trollopes die-hard fans will be thrilled by his candid evaluation of his own work and his recognition of his novels flaws and accomplishments. This autobiography extends beyond just his literary life, providing an intimate look at his years juggling his passion for writing with a full-time job at the post office.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Chapter seventeen of the Autobiography of Anthony Trollop. This LibriVox
recording is in the public domain. Autobiography of Anthony Trollop,
The American Postal Treaty The Question of Copyright with America
four more novels. In the spring of eighteen sixty eight,

(00:23):
before the affair Beverly, which, as being the first direct
result of my resignation of office, has been brought in
a little out of its turn, I was requested to
go over to the United States and make a postal
treaty at Washington. This, as I had left the service,
I regarded as a compliment, and of course I went.

(00:44):
It was my third visit to America, and I have
made two since. As far as the post Office work
was concerned, it was very far from being agreeable. I
found myself located at Washington, a place I do not love,
and was harassed by, annoyed by incompetence, and opposed by
what I felt to be personal and not national views.

(01:08):
I had to deal with two men, with one who
was a working officer of the American Post Office than
whom I have never met a more zealous or, as
far as I could judge, a more honest public servant.
He had his views and I had mine, each of
us having at heart the welfare of the service in
regard to his own country, each of us also having

(01:29):
certain orders which we were bound to obey. But the
other gentleman, who was in rank, the superior, whose executive
position was dependent on his official status, as is the
case with our own ministers, did not recommend himself to me. Equally.
He would make appointments with me and then not keep them,

(01:49):
which at last offended me so grievously that I declared
the Washington Post Office that if this treatment were continued,
I would write home to say that any further action
on my mind my part was impossible. I think I
should have done so, had it not occurred to me
that I might in this way serve his purpose rather
than my own or the purposes of those who had
sent me. The treaty, however, was at last made, the

(02:14):
purport of which was that everything possible should be done
at a heavy expenditure on the part of England to
expedite the mails from England to America, and that nothing
should be done by America to expedite the mails from
thence to us. The expedition I believed to be now
equal both ways, but it could not be maintained as

(02:34):
it is without the payment of a heavy subsidy from
Great Britain, whereas no subsidy is paid by the States. Footnote.
This was a state of things which may probably have
appeared to American politicians to be exactly that which they
should try to obtain. The whole arrangement has again been
altered since the time of which I have spoken. I

(02:57):
had also a commission from the Foreign Office, for which
I had asked to make an effort on behalf of
an international copyright between the United States and Great Britain,
the want of which is the one great impediment to
pecuniary success which still stands in the way of successful
English authors. I cannot say that I have never had
a shilling of American money on behalf of reprints of

(03:19):
my work, but I have been conscious of no such payment,
having found many years ago in eighteen sixty one, when
I made a struggle on the subject being then in
the States, the details of which are sufficiently amusing. Footnote.
In answer to a question from myself, a certain American publisher,

(03:40):
he who usually reprinted my works promised me that if
any other American publisher republished my work on America before
he had done so, he would not bring out a
competing edition, though there would be no law to hinder him.
I then entered into an agreement with another American publisher,
stipulating to supply him with early sheets, and he stipulating

(04:04):
to supply me a certain royalty on his sales, with
accounts half yearly. I sent the sheets with energetic punctuality,
and the work was brought out with equal energy and
precision by my old American publishers. The gentleman who made
the promise had not broken his word. No other American
edition had come out before his. I never got any account,

(04:28):
and of course never received a dollar that I could
not myself succeed in dealing with American booksellers. I have
sold all foreign right to the English publishers, and though
I do not know that I have raised my price
against them on that score, I may in this way
have had some indirect advantage from the American market. But

(04:50):
I do know that what the publishers have received here
is very trifling. I doubt whether Monsieur Chapman and Hall,
my present publishers get for early sheets sent to them
states as much as five percent on the price they
pay me for my manuscript. But the American readers are
more numerous than the English, and taking them all through,
are probably more wealthy. If I can get one thousand

(05:13):
for a book here, exclusive of their market, I ought
to be able to get as much there. If a
man supply six hundred customers with shoes in place of
three hundred, there is no question as to such result.
Why not then, if I can supply sixty thousand readers
instead of thirty thousand. I fancied that I knew that

(05:34):
the opposition to an international copyright was by no means
an American feeling, but was confined to the bosoms of
a few interested Americans. All that I did and heard
in reference to the subject on this further visit, and
having a certain authority from the British Secretary of State
with me I could hear and do something altogether confirmed me.

(05:55):
In this view. I have no doubt that up I
could pull American readers, or American senators, or even American representatives,
if the polling could be unbiased, or American booksellers Footnote,
I might also say American publishers, if I might count
them by the number of heads and not by the

(06:15):
amount of work done by the firms, that an assent
to an international copyright would be the result. The state
of things as it is is crushing to American authors,
as the publishers will not pay them a liberal scale,
knowing that they can supply their customers with modern English
literature without paying for it. The English amount of production

(06:38):
so much exceeds the American that the rate at which
the former can be published rules the market. It is
equally injurious to American booksellers, except to two or three
of the greatest houses. No small man can now acquire
the exclusive right of printing and selling an English book.
If such a one attempt it, the work is printed

(06:59):
instantly by one one of the Leviathans, who alone are
the gainers. The argument, of course, is that the American
readers are the gainers, that as they can get for
nothing the use of certain property, they would be cutting
their own throats were they to pass a law debarring
themselves from the power of such appropriation. In this argument,
all idea of honesty is thrown to the winds. It

(07:22):
is not that they do not approve of a system
of copyright as many great men have disapproved for their
own law of copyright is as stringent as ours. A
bold assertion is made that they like to appropriate the
goods of other people, and that as in this case
they can do so with impunity, they will continue to
do so. But the argument, as far as I have

(07:44):
been able to judge, comes not from the people, but
from the book selling Leviathans, and from those politicians whom
the Leviathans are able to attach to their interests. The
ordinary American purchaser is not much affected by slight variations
of price. He is, at any rate, too highearted to
be affected by the prospect of such variation. It is

(08:06):
the man who wants to make money, not he who
fears that he may be called upon to spend it,
who controls such matters as this. In the United States,
it is the large speculator who becomes powerful in the
lobbies of the House and understands how wise it may
be to incur a great expenditure, either in the creation
of a great business or in protecting that which he

(08:29):
has created from competition. Nothing was done in eighteen sixty eight,
and nothing has been done since up to eighteen seventy six.
A Royal Commission on the Law of copyright is now
about to sit in this country, of which I have
consented to be a member, and the question must then
be handled. Though nothing done by a royal commission here

(08:50):
can affect American legislators, but I do believe that if
the measure be consistently and judiciously urged, the enemies to
it in the States will gradually be overcome. Some years
since we had some quasi private meetings under the presidency
of Lord Stanhope in mister John Murray's dining room on
the subject of international copyright. At one of these I

(09:13):
discussed this matter of American international copyright with Charles Dickens,
who strongly declared his conviction that nothing would induce an
American to give up the power he possesses of pirrating
British literature. But he was a man who, seeing clearly
what was before him, would not realize the possibility of
shifting views. Because in this matter the American decision had been,

(09:36):
according to his thinking, dishonest. Therefore, no other than dishonest
decision was to be expected from Americans. Against that idea,
I protested and now protest. American dishonesty is rampant, but
it is rampant only among a few. It is the
great misfortune of the community that those few have been

(09:57):
able to dominate so large a portion of the population,
among which all men can vote, but so few can
understand for what they are voting. Since this was written,
the Commission on the Law of Copyright has sat and
made its report. With the great body of it. I
agree and could serve no reader by alluding here at

(10:17):
length to matters which are discussed there. But in regard
to this question of international copyright with the United States,
I think that we were incorrect in the expression of
an opinion that fair justice, or justice approaching to fairness
is now done by American publishers to English authors by
payments made by them for early sheets. I have just

(10:38):
found that twenty was paid to my publisher in England
for the use of the early sheets of a novel
for which I received sixteen hundred in England. When asked
why he accepted so little, he assured me that the
firm with whom he dealt would not give more. Why
not go to another firm, I asked, No other firm

(10:58):
would give a dollar, because no other firm would care
to run counter to that great firm which had assumed
to itself the right of publishing my books. I soon
after received a copy of my own novel in the
American form and found that it was published for seven
and a half d That a great sale was expected
can be argued from the fact that without a great sale,

(11:21):
the paper and printing necessary for the republication of a
three volume novel could not be supplied. Many thousand copies
must have been sold, but from these the author received
not one shilling. I need hardly point out that the
sum of twenty would not do more than compensate the

(11:41):
publisher for his trouble in making the bargain. The publisher here,
no doubt, might have refused to supply the early sheets,
but he had no means of exacting a higher price
than that offered. I mentioned the circumstance here because it
has been boasted on behalf of the American publishers that,
though there there is no international copyright, they deal so

(12:02):
liberally with English authors as to make it unnecessary that
the English authors should be so protected. With the fact
of the twenty just brought to my knowledge and with
the copy of my book published at seven and a
half d now and by hands, I feel that an
international copyright is very necessary for my protection. They, among

(12:25):
Englishmen who best love and most admire the United States,
have felt themselves tempted to use the strongest language in
denouncing the sins of Americans, who can but love their
personal generosity, their active and far seeking philanthropy, their love
of education, their hatred of ignorance, the general convictions of

(12:47):
the minds of all of them, that a man should
be enabled to walk upright, fearing no one, and conscious
that he is responsible for his own actions. In what
country have grander efforts been made by private munichonficence to
relieve the sufferings of humanity? Where can the English traveler
find any more anxious to assist him than the normal American,

(13:10):
When once the American shall have found the Englishman to
be neither sullen nor fastidious, who lastly is so much
an object of heartfelt admiration of the American man and
the American woman as the well mannered and well educated
englishwoman or englishmen. These are the ideas which I say
spring uppermost in the minds of the unprejudiced English traveler.

(13:33):
As he makes acquaintance with these near relatives, then he
becomes cognizant of their official doings, of their politics, of
their municipal scandals, of their great ring robberies, of their
lobbyings and briberies, and the infinite baseness of their public life.
There are, at the top of everything, he finds the

(13:54):
very men who are the least fit to occupy high places.
American public design honesty is so glaring that the very
friends he has made in the country are not slow
to acknowledge it, speaking of public life as a thing
apart from their own existence, as a state of dirt,
in which it would be an insult to suppose that
they are concerned in the midst of it all. The

(14:16):
stranger who sees so much that he hates and so
much that he loves, hardly knows how to express himself.
It is not enough that you are personally clean, he says,
with what energy and courage he can command. Not enough,
though the clean outnumber the foul, as greatly as those
gifted with eyesight outnumber the blind. If you that can see,

(14:39):
allow the blind to lead you. It is not by
the private lives of the millions that the outside world
will judge you, but by the public career of those
units whose venality is allowed to debase the name of
your country. There never was plainer proof given than is
given here that it is the duty of every honest
citizen to look at after the honor of his state. Personally,

(15:04):
I have to own that I have met Americans men,
but more frequently women, who have, in all respects come
up to my ideas of what men and women should be, energetic,
having opinions of their own, quickened speech, with some dash
of sarcasm at their command, always intelligent, sweet to look at.
I speak of the women fond of pleasure, and each

(15:27):
with a personality of his or her own, which makes
no effort necessary on my own part in remembering the
difference between missus Walker and missus Green, or between mister
Smith and mister Johnson. They have faults, their self conscious
and are too prone to prove by ill concealed struggles
that they are as good as you, whereas you perhaps
have been long acknowledging to yourself that they are much better.

(15:50):
And there's sometimes a pretense at personal dignity among those
who think themselves to have risen high in the world,
which is deliciously ludicrous. I remember, too, old gentlemen, the
owners of names which stand deservedly high in public estimation,
whose deportment at a public funeral turned the occasion into
one for irresistible comedy. They are suspicious at first, and

(16:13):
fearful of themselves. They lack that simplicity of manners which
with us has become a habit from our childhood. But
they are never fools, and I think that they are
seldom ill natured. There is a woman of whom not
to speak in a work purporting to be a memoir
of my own life would be to omit all allusion

(16:33):
to one of the chief pleasures which has graced my
later years. In the last fifteen years, she has been
out of my family, my most chosen friend. She is
a ray of light to me from which I can
always strike a spark by thinking of her. I do
not know that I should please her or do any
good by naming her, But not to allude to her

(16:53):
in these pages would amount almost to a falsehood. I
could not write truly of myself without saying that such
a friend had been vouchsafed to me. I trust she
may live to read the words I have now written,
and to wipe away a tear as she thinks of
my feeling while I write them. I was absent on
this occasion something over three months, and on my return

(17:15):
I went back with energy to my work at the
Saint Paul's magazine. The first novel in it for my
own pen was called Phineas Finn, in which I commenced
a series of semi political tales. As I was debarred
from expressing my opinions in the House of Commons, I
took this method of declaring myself. And as I could

(17:35):
not take my seat down those benches where I might
possibly have been shown upon by the Speaker's eye, I
had humbly to crave his permission for a seat in
the gallery, so that I might thus become conversant with
the ways and doings of the house in which some
of my scenes were to be placed. The Speaker was
very gracious and gave me a running order for I

(17:56):
think a couple months. It was enough at any rate
to enable me often to be very tired, and, as
I have been assured by members, to talk of the
proceedings almost as well as though fortune had enabled me
to fall asleep within the house itself. In writing Phineas
Finn and also some other novels which followed it, I

(18:17):
was conscious that I could not make a tale pleasing,
chiefly or perhaps in any part, by politics. If I
write politics for my own sake, I must put in
love and intrigue social incidents, with perhaps a dash of sport,
for the benefit of my readers. In this way I
think I made my political hero interesting. It was certainly

(18:37):
a blunder to take him from Ireland, into which I
was led by the circumstance that I created the scheme
of the book during a visit to Ireland. There was
nothing to be gained by the peculiarity, and there was
an added difficulty in obtaining sympathy and affection for a
politician belonging to a nationality whose politics are not respected

(18:57):
in England. But in spite of this Phineas succeeded. It
was not a brilliant success because men and women not
conversant with political matters could not care much for a
hero who spent so much of his time either in
the House of Commons or in a public office. But
the men who would have lived with Phineas Finn read
the book, and the women who would have lived with

(19:19):
Lady Laura Standish read it also. As this was what
I had intended. I was contented. It is all fairly good,
except the ending. As to which till I got to it,
I made no provision. As I fully intended to bring
my hero again into the world. I was wrong to
marry him to a simple, pretty Irish girl who could
only be felt as an encumbrance on such return. When

(19:42):
he did return, I had no alternative but to kill
the simple, pretty Irish girl, which was an unpleasant and
awkward necessity in writing Phineas Finn. I had constantly before
me the necessity of progression in character of marking the
changes in men and women which would naturally be produced
by the lapse of years. In most novels, the writer

(20:04):
can have no such duty, as the period occupied is
not long enough to allow of the change of which
I speak in Ivanhoe, all the incidents of which are
included in less than a month. The characters should be
as they are consistent throughout. Novelists who have undertaken to
write the life of a hero or heroine have generally

(20:25):
considered their work completed at the interesting period of marriage,
and have contented themselves with the advance and taste and
manners which are common to all boys and girls as
they become men and women. Fielding, no doubt, did more
than this in Tom Jones, which is one of the
greatest novels in the English language. For here he has
shown how a noble and sanguine nature may fall away

(20:47):
under temptation and be again strengthened and made to stand upright.
But I do not think that novelists have often set
before themselves the state of progressive change, nor should I
have done it. I not found myself so frequently allured
back to my old friends. So much of my inner
life was passed in their company that I was continually

(21:08):
asking myself how this woman would act when this or
that event had passed over her head, or how that
would carry himself when his youth had become manhood or
his manhood declined to old age. It was in regard
to the old Duke of Omnium, of his nephew and heir,
and of his heir's wife, Lady Glencora, that I was

(21:29):
anxious to carry out this idea. But others added themselves
to my mind as I went on and I got
round me a circle of persons as to whom I
knew not only their present characters, but how those characters
were to be affected by years and circumstances. The happy
motherly life of Violet Effingham, which was due to the

(21:50):
girl's honest but long restrained love. The tragic misery of
Lady Laura, which was equally due to the sale she
made of herself in her wretched marriage. And the long
suffering but final success of the hero, of which he
had deserved, the first by his vanity and the last
by his constant honesty. Had been foreshadowed to me from

(22:10):
the first. As to the incidents of the story, the
circumstances by which these personages were to be effected, I
knew nothing. They were created, for the most part, as
they were described. I never could arrange a set of
events before me. But the evil and the good of
my puppets, and how the evil would always lead to

(22:32):
evil and the good produce good. That was clear to
me as the stars on a summer night. Lady Laura
Standish is the best character in Phineas Finn and its sequel,
Phineas Reducts of which I will speak here. Together. They
are in fact but one novel, though they were brought
out at a considerable interval of time and indifferent form.

(22:53):
The first was commenced in Saint Paul's magazine in eighteen
sixty seven, and the other was brought out in The
Graph in eighteen seventy three. In this there was much
bad arrangement, as I had no right to expect that
novel readers would remember the characters of a story after
an interval of six years, or that any little interest
which might have been taken in the career of my

(23:15):
hero could then have been renewed. I do not know
that such interest was renewed. But I found that the
sequel enjoyed the same popularity as the former part, and
among the same class of readers. Phineas and Lady Laura
and Lady Chiltern as Violet had become, and the old Duke,
whom I killed gracefully, and the new Duke and the

(23:36):
young Duchess either kept their old friends or made new
friends for themselves. Phineas Finn, I certainly think was successful
from first to last. I am aware, however, that there
was nothing in it to touch the heart like the
abasement of Lady Mason when confessing her guilt to rowd lover,
or any approach and delicacy of delineation to the character

(23:56):
of mister Crawley Phineas Finn. The first part of the
story was completed in May eighteen sixty seven. In June
and July, I wrote Linda Tressel for Blackwood's magazine, of
which I have already spoken. In September and October I
wrote a short novel called The Golden Lion of Grand Pere,

(24:17):
which was intended also for Blackwood, with a view of
being published anonymously. But mister Blackwood did not find the
arrangement to be profitable, and the story remained on my hands,
unread and unthought of, for a few years. It appeared
subsequently in Good Words. It was written on the model
of Nina Bolatka and Linda Tressel, but is very inferior

(24:39):
to either of them. In November of the same year,
eighteen sixty seven, I began a very long novel which
I called He Knew He Was Right, and which was
brought out by mister Virtue, the proprietor of the Saint
Paul's magazine. In sixpenny numbers every week. I do not
know that in any literary effort I ever fell more
completely short of my own intention than in this story.

(25:03):
It was my purpose to create sympathy for the unfortunate man, who,
while endeavoring to do his duty to all around him,
should be led constantly astray by his unwillingness to submit
his own judgment to the opinion of others. The man
is made to be unfortunate enough, and the evil which
he does as a parent. So far I did not fail.

(25:24):
But the sympathy has not been created yet. I look
upon the story as being nearly altogether bad. It is
in part redeemed by certain scenes in the house and
vicinity of an old maid and Exeter. But a novel
which in its main parts is bad, cannot in truth
be redeemed by the vitality of subordinate characters. This work

(25:48):
was finished while I was at Washington in the spring
of eighteen sixty eight, and on the day after I
finished it, I commenced The Vicar of Bulhampton, a novel
which I wrote for Messrs Bradbury and Evans. I completed
in November eighteen sixty eight, and at once began Sir
Harry Hotspur of Humbldweight, a story which I was still
writing at the close of the year. I look upon

(26:11):
these two years eighteen sixty seven in eighteen sixty eight,
of which I have given a somewhat confused account in
this in the two preceding chapters, as the busiest of
my life. I had indeed left the post Office, but
though I had left it, I had been employed by
it during a considerable portion of the time. I had
established the Saint Paul's Magazine, in reference to which I

(26:33):
had read an enormous amount of manuscript and for which
independently of my novels, I had written articles almost monthly.
I had stood for Beverly, and had made many speeches.
I had also written five novels, and had hunted three
times a week during each of the winters. And how
happy I was with it all. I had suffered at Beverly,

(26:54):
but I had suffered as a part of the work
which I was desirous of doing, and I had gained
my experience. I had suffered at Washington, with that wretched
American postmaster and with the mosquitoes, not having been able
to escape from that capital till July but all that
had added to the activity of my life. I had
often groaned over those manuscripts, but I had read them,

(27:15):
considering it, perhaps foolishly, to be a part of my
duty as editor. And though in the quick production of
my novels I had always ringing in my ears that
terrible condemnation and scorn produced by the great man in
patternaster Row, I was nevertheless proud of having done so much.
I always had a pen in my hand. Whether crossing

(27:37):
the seas, or fighting with American officials, or tramping about
the streets of Beverly, I could do a little, and
generally more than a little. I had long since convinced
myself that in such work as mine, the great secret
consisted in acknowledging myself to be bound to rules of
labor similar to those which an artisan or a mechanic

(27:57):
is forced to obey. A shoemaker, when he has finished
one pair of shoes, does not sit down and contemplate
his work in idle satisfaction. There is my pair of
shoes finished at last, What a pair of shoes? It
is the shoemaker who so indulged himself, would be without
wages half his time. It is the same with a

(28:20):
professional writer of books. An author may, of course want
time to study a new subject. He will at any
rate assure himself that there is some such good reason
why he should pause. He does pause, and will be
idle for a month or two while he tells himself
how beautiful is that last pair of shoes which he
has finished. Having thought much of all this, and having

(28:42):
made up my mind that I could be really happy
only when I was at work, I had now quite
accustomed myself to begin a second pair as soon as
the first was out of my hands. End of Chapter seventeen.
Recording by Jessica Luise, Minneapolis, Minnesota,