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The Social Problem Novels of Frances Trollope

General Editor: Brenda Ayres Volume Editor: Christine Sutphin Introductions:  Brenda Ayres, Ann-Barbara Graff, Priti Joshi, Christine Sutphin and Douglas Murray
The Pickering Masters 4 Volume Set: c.1600pp: 2008 978 1 85196 972 2: 234x156: 350/$625

rances Milton Trollope (17791863) was a prolific, provocative and hugely successful novelist. She greatly influenced the generation of mid-Victorian novelists who came after her such as Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell. This is the first modern, scholarly, annotated edition of Frances Trollopes social problem novels.

Trollopes novels brought her readers into contact with a wide range of social issues. Her novels dealt with work issues, such as child labour, unsafe working conditions, excessive hours and poor wages. She campaigned against the bastardy clause in the Poor Laws, which absolved fathers from financial responsibility for their illegitimate children. She was also a committed abolitionist, having spent three years in Ohio where she heard first hand the stories of cruelty that slaves experienced in the South. These were told by slaves fleeing from slave-holding Kentucky into free Ohio. Trollope marketed her books carefully to maximise public outrage and expected her readers to put pressure on parliament to legislate reform. The novels included in this edition are not available in any modern scholarly print or electronic edition. The set includes a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes and endnotes. It will be important for those studying and researching Nineteenth-Century Studies, Womens Writing and the History of the Novel.

Portrait of Frances Trollope, Auguste Hervieu (c. 1832) National Portrait Gallery, London

 Restores a neglected voice to the nineteenthcentury canon  Edited and introduced by leading Trollope scholars S  hows how literature influenced legislative reform during the nineteenth century N  ew editorial material includes a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes and endnotes

e M Pi a ck st e er ri s ng

Contents
The Life and Adventures of Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw: Or Scenes on the Mississippi, illustrated Auguste Hervieu (1836) Editor: Brenda Ayres This ground-breaking novel was the first piece of fiction to incense readers about the evils of slavery. Trollope spent two-and-ahalf years in America, mostly in Cincinnati, Ohio. There, she witnessed the desperate escape of slaves crossing the Ohio River from the neighbouring slave state of Kentucky into Ohio. She left the city shortly before Harriet Beecher Stowe arrived, but the pair became correspondents and friends. Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw was highly influential on Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, 'the little book', which Abraham Lincoln said 'started this big war'. The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy, illustrated Auguste Hervieu (1840) Editor: Brenda Ayres This sympathetic and shocking portrayal of children in industry provoked an outrage that led to the revision of the Factory Act. The new law forbade the hiring of children younger than eight years of age and their working more than six-and-a-half hours per day. To gain a maximum audience to read her message, Trollope had her book sold in monthly instalments at one shilling each, which was very rare for women writers. Michael Armstrong established a prototypical heroine visiting the home of a factory labourer, and through her eyes, urging society to show mercy and kindness to the unfortunate, a paradigm later used by Elizabeth Gaskell in Mary Barton and North and South, George Eliot in Adam Bede, and Charles Dickens in Hard Times. Jessie Phillips: A Tale of the Present Day, illustrated John Leech (1843) Editor: Brenda Ayres Jessie Phillips was serialized in order to raise awareness of the bastardy clause in the 1834 Poor Law, which placed the sole responsibility for illegitimate children on the mother. As the novel appeared from December 1842 through November 1843, Trollope received an avalanche of mail by readers greatly moved by her story. Less than one year after the first appearance of Jessie Phillips, the House of Commons passed the Little Poor Law. It included a new bastardy clause which held fathers financially responsible for their illegitimate children. The Vicar of Wrexhill, illustrated Auguste Hervieu (1837) Editor: Christine Sutphin Although Trollope approved of religiously charged social reform, she warned her readers against unscrupulous religious leaders who set out to exploit them. The Vicar of Wrexhill tells the story of a widow who, made socially helpless because of the death of her husband, is taken advantage of by her vicar, marries him and allows herself to fall under his total control. This tragically leads to the death of her and their child, jeopardizes the inheritance of her other children, throws the entire parish into a havoc, and enthrals her youngest daughter into a religious frenzy that drives her mad.

Editorial board
Brenda Ayres is at Liberty University Ann-Barbara Graff is at Nipissing University Priti Joshi is at University of Puget Sound Douglas Murray is at Belmont University Christine Sutphin is at Central Washington University

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