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The plot is thin and the characters are caricatures yet we are propelled along by the movement through time and place. The Widow Barnaby's niece, Agnes, is the real heroine of the piece and we find it difficult to put down the book until we know what her future is to be, and of course there can be no doubt that she will 'get her man' and live happily ever after.
The book offers us a glimpse into the social world of Clifton, Bristol, Cheltenham and London. The social world of professional people and the aristocracy. A world where working life is peripheral to the story line. A world where marriage-alliances underly the social world of 'taking the waters, attending balls, visiting, promenading, and subscription libraries. A world where military rank and red uniforms impress the ladies. This is the world of Jane Austen which shouldn't surprise us considering that Fanny Trollope and Jane Austen were contemporaries sharing the same network of contacts.
After being introduced to the family history, grounded in rural Devon at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries we begin to see the character of Martha, who later becomes the Widow Barnaby, develop as she interacts with her social world. We learn that Martha is a young woman in 1813 and recognise that the author is writing of the England she knew as a younger woman. Fanny Trollope was aged sixty when the book was published in 1839.
As for the Widow herself, the author was astute enough to recognise that this character was rich in possibilities and in 1840 'The Widow Married' was published to be followed in 1843 by 'The Barnaby's in America'. We can only hope that the current interest in republishing the works of Fanny Trollope continues and that we may shortly be able to obtain these later books to follow the Widow's adventures.
Fanny Trollope is first and foremost a story-teller who uses her everyday powers of perception to reveal the superficiality of the social norms of her day. For those who are interested in examining how her novels draw on her own life experiences readers are directed to Pamela Neville-Sington's 'Fanny Trollope - The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman'
Martha Barnaby is a creation rivalled only by some of Charles Dickens more ridiculous female characters, but she is more real than any of them. Some passages involving her are laugh-out-loud funny. The perfect Agnes is rather pasteboard, but one can pity her shrinking from the worst aspects of her aunt and feel concern for her prospects, since at the time such a relative could wreck a girl's chances of making a good marriage for ever, and a good marriage was the only way to escape respectably. Just occasionally one wishes she would reply in kind as a modern girl would.
Fanny Trollope, mother of the more famous Anthony, is little read nowadays, which is a shame. Those who enjoy Jane Austen and wish she had written more will probably enjoy this more than any modern sequel. Fanny was the mother of numerous children and was compelled in her middle age to write to earn a living. So she is considerably more worldly-wise than the spinster Jane, of whom she was a contemporary. Her characters move in a similar or slightly lower level of society, and there is more detail of everyday life and the shifts one might be put to in attempting to appear richer or more genteel than one actually was.
My favourite character in the book is the prickly but good-hearted recluse Miss Compton, aunt of the widow and the only person who gives her as good as she gets.
First published in 1839 the Widow Barnaby is a brilliant comic novel set amongst the fashionable world in Bristol and Cheltenham. It follows the adventures of Mrs Martha Barnaby, the widow of the title, and her niece Agnes.
The Widow Barnaby is not your usual 19th century heroine. She is, in fact, insufferable! Vulgar, loud, brash and cringe-worthy but this doesn't stop the reader wanting to follow her story to the end. She is determined to climb the ranks of the fashionable society in any way possible.
Agnes, on the other hand, is your fairly stock early Victorian heroine - self-effacing, kind and gentle - and in consequence much less interesting than the Widow herself although her story is also enjoyable.
It is a shame that Fanny Trollope is no longer read much because the Widow Barnaby deserves to be read for its humour and its satirical look at early Victorian aristocratic society. Now I only want someone to republish the sequels - The Widow Married and The Barnabys in America.
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