SOURCE: “Truth and Fiction in Trollope's Autobiography,” Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 48, No. 1, June, 1993, pp. 74-88.

In the following essay, Super reviews the exaggerations and inaccuracies in Trollope's An Autobiography, and contends that despite the faulty facts in the work, Trollope's vision remains pure.

It is a delicate and difficult matter to assess Trollope's judgment of Dickens, or Dickens's judgment of Trollope, at the personal level (Trollope is very explicit about his view of Dickens as a novelist).¹ Their careers ran parallel in so many respects, and yet they disagreed so often on personal matters. Trollope loved the Garrick Club, Dickens quarrelled with it; Trollope was a devoted supporter of the Royal Literary Fund, and Dickens, with the same charitable intent, set up a rival organization. Yet Trollope was one of the financial supporters of the London dinner given for Dickens on the eve of his journey to America (2 November...