Fanny Trollope

'No other author of the present day has been so much read, so much admired, and so much abused' wrote a contemporary reviewer of Fanny Trollope. Domestic Manners of the Americans, Fanny's controversial pioneer work, took nineteenth-century sensibilities by storm, and when published in 1832, ran to four editions both in the UK and America in its first year. At the age of fifty-three, Mrs Trollope became a celebrity, and her later works were immensely popular. In recent years her work has been largely overshadowed by that of her son Anthony, but today the quality of her work and her importance in contemporary literature is again being recognized.

Born in Bristol in 1779, she was the daughter of a country parson. Marrying a barrister in 1809, she produced seven children in eight years. When her husband found himself in financial trouble she decided to take three of the children to America where living was cheaper. She had hoped to set up her son Henry in business, but the bazaar she built was a disaster. Returning to England on borrowed money, the book of those years, Domestic Manners of the Americans, was an instant bestseller, and changed her life forever. However, still plagued by financial problems, the family fled to Belgium. There Fanny became the sole breadwinner, supporting the family by writing, while nursing her dying husband and son, Henry.

She wrote until she was seventy-seven, producing forty-one books in twenty-four years. With their accurate and wickedly satirical look at the modes of contemporary Regency and early Victorian life, her books caused outrage among some, but were widely admired. This is a compelling portrait of a remarkable woman writer.