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Lady Anna
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Product Description
Product Description
Lady Anna (1874) by Anthony Trollope is a British Victorian novel of social mores, courtship, and thwarted relationships, dealing with the impact of an extended legal dispute over the validity of a noble title upon the lives of a countess and her daughter.
In this powerful story that the author himself considered one of his most successful, Lady Anna is torn between love and duty, between two suitors and the pressures of conforming to her mother's iron will.
About the Author
As young adult, Trollope endured seven years of poverty in the General Post Office in London before accepting a better-paying position as postal surveyor in Banagher, Ireland in 1841. The years in Ireland formed the basis of his second career delineating clerical life in small cathedral towns.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite - a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland - on the 1st of June, 181 - . Read the first page
Front Cover | Table of Contents | Excerpt
Women have often been hardly used by men, but perhaps no harder usage, no fiercer cruelty was ever experienced by a woman than that which fell to the lot of Josephine Murray from the hands of Earl Lovel, to whom she was married in the parish church of Applethwaite - a parish without a village, lying among the mountains of Cumberland - on the 1st of June, 181 - . Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anthony Trollope declared once that "Lady Anna" was "the best novel I ever wrote". Readers did not agree. Appearing between the masterpieces "Phineas Redux" and "The Way We Live Now", it sold poorly and has been neglected ever since. Trollope blamed this failure on his audience's objections to the heroine's choice of a husband, though similar complaints, much more vehemently expressed, had not sunk "The Small House at Allington". (There Lily Dale remains faithful to the memory of a cad, scorning the devoted attentions of a worthy suitor. Anna's wooers, by contrast, are both good men, though vastly different in rank and personality.)
"Lady Anna" is, in fact, a well-knit narrative with more suspense than is usual for Trollope. Will the courts declare Anna to be Lady Anna Lovel, heiress to 35,000 pounds a year, or merely Anna Murray, a pauper? Which of her suitors, the sometimes surly tailor Daniel Thwaite or her handsome, good-natured cousin Lord Lovel, will Anna prefer? Will Daniel's political principles lead to a breach with his childhood sweetheart? Will the impoverished Lord Lovel find honorable means to support his noble rank? The plot takes surprising, if not astonishing, turns; the characterization is as deft as ever; and there is a leavening of subtle humor, such as Daniel's cross-purposes consultation with a quondam radical poet (a thinly disguised Robert Southey) who has evolved into an intractable Tory.
The book's weakness is that the leading characters are, by and large, decent folk at the beginning and, except for one who falls into a state akin to madness, remain decent, if not unchanged, to the end. Conflicts end in rational compromises. Everybody eventually sees everybody else's point of view. Even the lawyers on opposite sides of Lady Anna's case get along amicably. (One solicitor does have the sense to grumble that such harmony is unprofessional.)
Trollope's liking for this novel may have arisen from the fact that it is light, sunny and fresh. There may be an evil earl in the first chapter and a mad countess in the last, but how pleasant for the writer to be free for a time from the political intrigues, financial manipulations and cynical worldliness of the Palliser saga and "The Way We Live Now"! Moreover, "Lady Anna" was, in its creator's mind, only a prologue. The last paragraph promises a (never written) sequel, where the characters doubtless were intended to meet sterner challenges. There are hints that the scene would have shifted to Australia and America and that the hero's and heroine's homegrown principles were to be put to the test in those lands. Thus the author had much in view that he never disclosed to his readers, perhaps accounting for part of the discrepancy between his opinion and theirs.
No one who has not read all of the Palliser and Barset novels, not to mention "The Way We Live Now", should pick up "Lady Anna". I recommend it immediately after the last-named. It will cleanse the palate and leave a lingering regret that the rest of Anna's and Daniel's and Lord Lovel's adventures will never be known.
Incidental note: The introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition, the one that I am reviewing, is an extraordinarily silly example of lit crit bafflegab. Don't read it before reading the novel. Read afterwards, its wrong-headed ideological interpretations may prove amusing.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was totally swept away with this book. I wish there was a better phrase for `I couldn't put it down' but for the moment I can't think of one.
I have never read Anthony Trollope before and when choosing my first novel to read of his I chose the shortest one. I am not scared by big novels but I thought this was best. I am so glad I did and will hopefully be progressing to his huge tomes later this year!
It took me a while to get into Trollope's style but once I did I was literally transfixed. It is amazing how the simple premise of a woman torn between two men (although it is more complicated than that obviously) can be written about in such beautiful detail. Until the end I was unsure as to whom she would go with and the found the whole tale totally gripping. Anna is an amazing woman - especially for 1874! The relationship she has with Mother is fascinating as well. All I can say is don't waste any time - buy it and read it!
I have never read Anthony Trollope before and when choosing my first novel to read of his I chose the shortest one. I am not scared by big novels but I thought this was best. I am so glad I did and will hopefully be progressing to his huge tomes later this year!
It took me a while to get into Trollope's style but once I did I was literally transfixed. It is amazing how the simple premise of a woman torn between two men (although it is more complicated than that obviously) can be written about in such beautiful detail. Until the end I was unsure as to whom she would go with and the found the whole tale totally gripping. Anna is an amazing woman - especially for 1874! The relationship she has with Mother is fascinating as well. All I can say is don't waste any time - buy it and read it!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anthony Trollope never fails to please, and as he claimed that this was the best novel he'd ever written, the reader will expect a difference - and there is!
Josephine Murray is the victim of a bogus/questionable marriage, and begins the story as rather a likeable character that begs the reader's sympathy. However, by the end of the book she's turned into a bitter twisted Lady! Bent on her own desires and ambitions at the expense of her innocent daughter and everyone else, she loses all credibility... The selfish mother's plans are foiled by the heroic tailor, Daniel Thwaite, who rescues the daughter from a tragic future.
All fans of Trollope: prepare to be surprised by this one!
Josephine Murray is the victim of a bogus/questionable marriage, and begins the story as rather a likeable character that begs the reader's sympathy. However, by the end of the book she's turned into a bitter twisted Lady! Bent on her own desires and ambitions at the expense of her innocent daughter and everyone else, she loses all credibility... The selfish mother's plans are foiled by the heroic tailor, Daniel Thwaite, who rescues the daughter from a tragic future.
All fans of Trollope: prepare to be surprised by this one!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Excellent book
It is a great credit to Trollope that he can make such a riviting story out of a simple plot as to which of two men a girl would marry. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Frankie
Not as good as Trollope's best, but still lovely
A classic Victorian tale of the lamentable woman. It's a well-told story with fairly archetypal characters. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Matrimm
"You shall never marry him."
Lady Anna was written by Anthony Trollope in 1874 - after The Eustace Diamonds and Phineas Redux, and before The Way We Live Now; and only eight years before Tollope's death. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Keen Reader
'With my own hands I will kill him first; - or you.'
These words are spoken at a certain point in the novel by the Countess Lovel, and the person she is addressing is none other than her daughter, the Lady Anna of the book's title. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Didier
A discovery for Trollope-lovers
Trollope himself thought that this book was his best, and history has proved otherwise. None the less, it's a very good read. Read more
Published on 10 April 2010 by F. M. M. Stott
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