From the Archives: The Likes and Dislikes of Anthony Trollope

One of the tiny, human pleasures of the archive laborer is a lively index, a phrase whose usual status as an oxymoron hints at the joy that finding a rare one prepared with some wit can evoke in the middle of a day at your desk. (For an excellent recent example, you can turn to Ken Jennings's Maphead, which includes such just-wanted-to-make-sure-you-were-paying-attention entries as "Benson, oddly terrifying episode of, 135," "Macedonia, Greece calling 'dibsies' on, 72," and "Jennings, Ken, potentially mistaken for pedophile, 200.")

Some subjects demand such entries, and in Richard Mullen's 1990 biography, Anthony Trollope: A Victorian in His World, it's not clear whether Mullen is having fun with some of his subentries under "Trollope, Anthony," or was just conscientiously cataloging his subject. But two sections in particular have a cumulative poetry and comedy that I thought it would be worth sharing here. They almost make a biography of their own, and I admire a biographer who can keep such close track of his subject's crucial and character-revealing preferences, and a subject who held so many strong opinions. You get a sense that he may have enjoyed some of his dislikes as much as his likes. (Note: I've edited somewhat for punchiness, but not much.)

Likes: art, 30; Titian, 289; good butter, 224; cigars, 128, 182, 335, 337, 426, 428, 473, 554, 605, 640; cities, 248, 390; coffee, 314-15, 446, 473; croquet, 425-6; dancing, 57-8, 134; forests, 179; trees, particularly oak and pine, 602-3; fruit, 40, 399-400, 425; gardens, 349, 426, 634-5; glee-singing, 92, 498; Ireland & the Irish, 67, 114, 120, 134, 202, 204, 265, 283; Irish humour, 230; kissing, 41, 135-6; Latin, 72-3; long novels, 169; mountains, 123, 285, 290, 332-3, 337, 347, 391; mutton, 16, 36, 215, 440; expensive notepaper, 427-8; picnics, 287; poetry, 100; swimming, 37, 67, 129, 335, 389, 443; tea, 100, 242, 449, 620; theatre, 30, 222; vegetables, 436; walking, 92, 123, 247, 690; whist, 588-9; wine, 436-7, 649, Chateau Leoville (1864) his favorite, 437; Australian wine, 541; South African wine, 622

Dislikes: advertising, 171-2, 632; British railway sandwiches, 525; Calvinism, 104; continental duvets, 602; French hats, 442; "Gladstone" claret, 437; lust, 134; Madeira wine, 399; mail coaches, 84, 546; military, 406, 627; moving house, 349-50; mourning, excessive, 427, 432, 708; Parliamentary Committees, 37, 316-17; sermons, 32, 269-70; service à la Russe, 438-40; snobbery, 617; sombre dress of Victorian men, 122, 345; spiritualism, 111; stamp collecting, 431; statistics, 397, 539; Utopian "philanthropists," 208, 324, 486; opponents of fox-hunting, 121-2. For his political dislikes, see Disraeli; Peel; Napoleon III.

I should add one other note from another Trollope biography I consulted. He strongly disliked crinolines.

Comments

[mike zim]

I Like his saying: "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."

This was a Goodreads Quote of the Day in April.

[Tom Nissley]

Of course, for him a "small daily task" was rolling out a dozen or so pages before breakfast, but I'm a great believer in his philosophy as well.

[Brooklyn D]

Cigars and kissing, both good, but difficult to work into the same evening, at least in my experience.

[Tom Nissley]

I guess it depends on what order you enjoy them in.