SOURCE: "Trollope's Shockers," in Times Literary Supplement, June 23, 1995, pp. 28-9.

The following is a review of John Sutherland's two-volume edition of Trollope's short fiction, Early Short Stories and Later Short Stories. Here Gill argues that despite their surprisingly unconventional themes, these stories are "familiar Trollope in unfamiliar guise."

"I wish Mr Trollope would go on writing Framley Parsonage for ever. I don't see any reason why it should ever come to an end. . . ." Elizabeth Gaskell had yielded to Trollope's power, as countless readers, to judge from the success of the World's Classics series alone, still do. Trollope lacked Dickens's linguistic magic, Eliot's intellectual command, Hardy's feeling for the possibilities of a scene, and James's commitment to formal grace, but he had to the highest degree the art of luring readers into a world they didn't want to leave. "I finished on Thursday the novel I was writing, and...