Trollope’s Autobiography

Abstract

To a writer Trollope’s Autobiography is the most revealing ever written. Writers’ autobiographies fall into a special class of their own, and there are not many of them. Among these Trollope’s is, paradoxically, the most illuminating about writing; I say ‘paradoxically’ because at the outset he specifically disclaims any intention of recording his inner life à la Rousseau. But he does so all the same; for his inner life was devoted to story-telling, the world of imagination he created for himself (or was born with, for he was a born story-teller), which had consoled him through all the years of misery of his boyhood and youth.