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The Small House at Allington (Penguin Classics)
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Anthony Trollope
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $9.60
You Save: $ 2.40 ( 20% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Author: Anthony Trollope
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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The Small House at Allington (Penguin Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140433258
ISBN: 0140433252
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 752
Publication Date: 1991-06-04
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140433258
ISBN: 0140433252
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 752
Publication Date: 1991-06-04
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics
Editorial Review of The Small House at Allington (Penguin Classics)
The Small House at Allington is the fifth book in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester series. As with all of Trollope's work, it is beautifully written and draws the reader into its many interwoven tales. Engaged to the ambitious and self-serving Adolphus Crosbie, Lily Dale is devastated when he jilts her for the aristocratic Lady Alexandrina. Although crushed by his faithlessness, Lily still believes she is bound to her unworthy former fiance for life and therefore condemned to remain single after his betrayal. And when a more deserving suitor pays his addresses, she is unable to see past her feelings for Crosbie. Written when Trollope was at the height of his popularity, The Small House at Allington contains his most admired heroine in Lily Dale, a young woman of independent spirit who nonetheless longs to be loved.
Customer Reviews of The Small House at Allington (Penguin Classics)
Customer Rating: 
Review Summary: Don't buy the Nonsuch Edition
Review: Like all of the Barsetshire novels, The Small House at Allington is a delight to read.
Less delightful is the Nonsuch Classics edition. This is the second Nonsuch title I have read, and both have been absolutely riddled with typos. I am not exaggerating when I write that there is some error (a strangely placed comma or an odd word substitution ("me" for "he" or "my" for "by") on virtually every page. It's very distracting and aggravating.
I would recommend the book very highly, but would strongly advise any reader to seek out another edition.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Money, money, money
Review: Money was terribly important to Anthony Trollope who never quit his day job at the British Post Office but laboured industriously both at his novels and at his career in the British civil service.
A typical Victorian civil servant in London worked from 10 to 4 for a little over a hundred pounds a year, wages with which a gentleman could pursue a comfortable life occupying a room in the city while dining at clubs, but wages at which he might not marry and raise a family without abandoning this high life. Having both required a much higher revenue, say a thousand a year. A family required a house not rooms, a carriage, not cabs, a housemaid for the wife not chores for the housewife. And there you know all you need to know of Adolphus Crowley, the man who jilts the novel's heroine, Lily Dale, when he learns she comes with no dowry.
A hundred pounds a year also amounted to the wages of Doctor Crofts, a young country doctor with only poor patients. He feels it's not quite enough to allow him to pursue Bell, Lily's older sister. It was also the fantastic sum promised the wards of Hiram's Hospital in the earlier Barsetshire novel, the Warden. Johnny Eames, Lily Dale's other suitor, also belongs to the civil service but at somewhat under a hundred a year and lives in a boarding house in rather unpleasant company.
And yet, money can't be everything. Lily Dale lives rent free with Bell and their widowed mother Mary in the small house of the title, while her bachelor uncle, the Squire of Allington whose land brings in some four thousand pounds a year, lives in the larger house. But when the childless uncle hints that their living there gives him some fatherly authority, the women refuse to recognize this and move out. On principle. We easily recognize Trollope in this careful working out of what actions are right and wrong, of how higher principles translate into practical everyday decisions.
Trollope does paint his characters with more contrast here than in his other Barsetshire novels, making his villain a little more villainous than Sowerby in Framley Parsonage and his heroine Lily Dale purer than Mary Thorne in Doctor Thorne. But I can't say I liked Lily very much. I certainly sympathized with her plight and admired her fortitude, but I think Trollope idealized her too much and turned fortitude to stubborness. Fortunately, other characters make up for a priggish Lily.
Since Trollope is Trollope, we end up sympathizing a little with the villain as he finds no solace in the woman for whom he left Lily. Uncle Christopher Dale relents somewhat in his position and acknowledges he loves his nieces, regardless of whatever duty he might or might not owe them. Johnny Eames, apparently more a more than slightly autobiographical character, grows up achieving something resembling manhood.
And we meet Plantagenet Palliser, the hero of Trollope's other great series, the Palliser novels, who appears scandalously often with the young Lady Dumbello. What will we make of that, now?
Vincent Poirier, Dublin
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Small House at Allington shows Trollope at the pinnacle of his game!
Review: The Small House at Allington (1864) is a nearly 800 page Victorian three decker novel by Anthony Trollope (1815-1882. The former postal employee wrote 47 novels and is one of Britain's greatest authors. The Small House at Allington is the favorite novel of former Conservative Prime Minister John Major. You don't have to be a politician or pundit to enjoy this excellent book.
Lily Dale lives in the Small House with her mother and sisters. She becomes engaged to the London playboy/cad Adolphus Crosbie. The office clerk John Eames is also in love with Lily. When Crosbie jilts Lily to wed Lady Alexandrine De Courcy a rich ninny the plot thickens. Will John win Lily or will she remain true to Crosbie her first love depsite the impossiblity of ever marrying him?
Trollope is very good in his realistic dialogue and situations. We see the British middle and upper classes at home, the club, in London and in the country. We encounter two major love triangles and see how these romances work themselves out in the class conscious world of high Victorian society. Unusual for Trollope is no mention of a fox hunt!
The novel is very long and was published serially in the Cornhill magazine over a number of months. I found it and Barchester Towers to be the most interesting of the Barsetshire novels set in and around the mythical town of Barset.
Trollope lacks the broad and comic vision of Dickens; the intelligent psychological insight of George Eliot and the satirical verve of Thackery but is still a novelist of the highest caliber. Read him and enjoy hours of reading pleasure.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: It's a good book
Review: I liked this book, not as much as some of the others in the series, but it has its distinguishing points. As other reviewers note, the characters are well drawn and believable. I most of all enjoyed the squire and the earl. The squire especially struck me as a sort of realistic Ebenezer Scrooge with the sharp edges much removed. I liked his sister Lady Julia. Crosbie is an interesting semi-cad. The descriptions of the hum-drum of the clerks' lifes in the City were revealing as well, and reminds one that Dilbert has his Victorian counterparts. The introduction to Plantagenet Palliser is finely done.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Best book in the 6 comprising the Barsetshire series
Review: Beautiful book. Though it's the 5th book in the series, any newcomers to Trollope could profitably start here to get the flavor of the series.
Review Summary: Don't buy the Nonsuch Edition
Review: Like all of the Barsetshire novels, The Small House at Allington is a delight to read.
Less delightful is the Nonsuch Classics edition. This is the second Nonsuch title I have read, and both have been absolutely riddled with typos. I am not exaggerating when I write that there is some error (a strangely placed comma or an odd word substitution ("me" for "he" or "my" for "by") on virtually every page. It's very distracting and aggravating.
I would recommend the book very highly, but would strongly advise any reader to seek out another edition.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Money, money, money
Review: Money was terribly important to Anthony Trollope who never quit his day job at the British Post Office but laboured industriously both at his novels and at his career in the British civil service.
A typical Victorian civil servant in London worked from 10 to 4 for a little over a hundred pounds a year, wages with which a gentleman could pursue a comfortable life occupying a room in the city while dining at clubs, but wages at which he might not marry and raise a family without abandoning this high life. Having both required a much higher revenue, say a thousand a year. A family required a house not rooms, a carriage, not cabs, a housemaid for the wife not chores for the housewife. And there you know all you need to know of Adolphus Crowley, the man who jilts the novel's heroine, Lily Dale, when he learns she comes with no dowry.
A hundred pounds a year also amounted to the wages of Doctor Crofts, a young country doctor with only poor patients. He feels it's not quite enough to allow him to pursue Bell, Lily's older sister. It was also the fantastic sum promised the wards of Hiram's Hospital in the earlier Barsetshire novel, the Warden. Johnny Eames, Lily Dale's other suitor, also belongs to the civil service but at somewhat under a hundred a year and lives in a boarding house in rather unpleasant company.
And yet, money can't be everything. Lily Dale lives rent free with Bell and their widowed mother Mary in the small house of the title, while her bachelor uncle, the Squire of Allington whose land brings in some four thousand pounds a year, lives in the larger house. But when the childless uncle hints that their living there gives him some fatherly authority, the women refuse to recognize this and move out. On principle. We easily recognize Trollope in this careful working out of what actions are right and wrong, of how higher principles translate into practical everyday decisions.
Trollope does paint his characters with more contrast here than in his other Barsetshire novels, making his villain a little more villainous than Sowerby in Framley Parsonage and his heroine Lily Dale purer than Mary Thorne in Doctor Thorne. But I can't say I liked Lily very much. I certainly sympathized with her plight and admired her fortitude, but I think Trollope idealized her too much and turned fortitude to stubborness. Fortunately, other characters make up for a priggish Lily.
Since Trollope is Trollope, we end up sympathizing a little with the villain as he finds no solace in the woman for whom he left Lily. Uncle Christopher Dale relents somewhat in his position and acknowledges he loves his nieces, regardless of whatever duty he might or might not owe them. Johnny Eames, apparently more a more than slightly autobiographical character, grows up achieving something resembling manhood.
And we meet Plantagenet Palliser, the hero of Trollope's other great series, the Palliser novels, who appears scandalously often with the young Lady Dumbello. What will we make of that, now?
Vincent Poirier, Dublin
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Small House at Allington shows Trollope at the pinnacle of his game!
Review: The Small House at Allington (1864) is a nearly 800 page Victorian three decker novel by Anthony Trollope (1815-1882. The former postal employee wrote 47 novels and is one of Britain's greatest authors. The Small House at Allington is the favorite novel of former Conservative Prime Minister John Major. You don't have to be a politician or pundit to enjoy this excellent book.
Lily Dale lives in the Small House with her mother and sisters. She becomes engaged to the London playboy/cad Adolphus Crosbie. The office clerk John Eames is also in love with Lily. When Crosbie jilts Lily to wed Lady Alexandrine De Courcy a rich ninny the plot thickens. Will John win Lily or will she remain true to Crosbie her first love depsite the impossiblity of ever marrying him?
Trollope is very good in his realistic dialogue and situations. We see the British middle and upper classes at home, the club, in London and in the country. We encounter two major love triangles and see how these romances work themselves out in the class conscious world of high Victorian society. Unusual for Trollope is no mention of a fox hunt!
The novel is very long and was published serially in the Cornhill magazine over a number of months. I found it and Barchester Towers to be the most interesting of the Barsetshire novels set in and around the mythical town of Barset.
Trollope lacks the broad and comic vision of Dickens; the intelligent psychological insight of George Eliot and the satirical verve of Thackery but is still a novelist of the highest caliber. Read him and enjoy hours of reading pleasure.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: It's a good book
Review: I liked this book, not as much as some of the others in the series, but it has its distinguishing points. As other reviewers note, the characters are well drawn and believable. I most of all enjoyed the squire and the earl. The squire especially struck me as a sort of realistic Ebenezer Scrooge with the sharp edges much removed. I liked his sister Lady Julia. Crosbie is an interesting semi-cad. The descriptions of the hum-drum of the clerks' lifes in the City were revealing as well, and reminds one that Dilbert has his Victorian counterparts. The introduction to Plantagenet Palliser is finely done.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Best book in the 6 comprising the Barsetshire series
Review: Beautiful book. Though it's the 5th book in the series, any newcomers to Trollope could profitably start here to get the flavor of the series.