Anthony Trollope’s first novel,
The Macdermots of Ballycloran, is set not in the fictional Barsetshire with which he is so readily associated, nor the parliamentary world of his celebrated Palliser series, but in County Leitrim, Ireland. This choice of location is not as odd as it might at first appear, since the author who is so often perceived as being quintessentially English spent substantial periods between 1841 and 1859 resident in Ireland, and that country was the location of his social, emotional, moral, professional, and creative transformation.
As Trollope explains in An Autobiography, he moved there at the age of 26 following seven miserable and unsuccessful years as a clerk in the General Post Office in London. Wretchedly uncomfortable with his lack of achievement and
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Citation: Siddle, Yvonne. "The Macdermots of Ballycloran". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 September 2008; last revised 25 April 2024. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=273, accessed 24 November 2024.]
