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    The Small House at Allington
    The Small House at Allington
    The Small House at Allington
    Audiobook25 hours

    The Small House at Allington

    Written by Anthony Trollope

    Narrated by David Shaw-Parker

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    The fifth novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, The Small House at Allington, concerns the lives of the two Dale girls, Lily and Bell, who live at the Small House. While Bell is in love with the local doctor, James Crofts, Lily is pursued by two men: the worldly, rich and handsome Adolphus Crosbie and the poor but honest Johnny Eames. With each determined to gain her hand in marriage, who will she choose? Enshrined as a literary classic, The Small House takes the reader on a delightful visit to rural England, and presents an insightful, compassionate and amusing examination of human nature, along with Trollope’s signature flashes of genius.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateFeb 15, 2015
    ISBN9781843798897
    Author

    Anthony Trollope

    Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was the third son of a barrister, who ruined his family by giving up the law for farming, and an industrious mother. After attending Winchester and Harrow, Trollope scraped into the General Post Office, London, in 1834, where he worked for seven years. In 1841 he was transferred to Ireland as a surveyor's clerk, and in 1844 married and settled at Clonmel. His first two novels were devoted to Irish life; his third, La Vendée, was historical. All were failures. After a distinguished career in the GPO, for which he invented the pillar box and travelled extensively abroad, Trollope resigned in 1867, earning his living from writing instead. He led an extensive social life, from which he drew material for his many social and political novels. The idea for The Warden (1855), the first of the six Barsetshire novels, came from a visit to Salisbury Close; with it came the characters whose fortunes were explored through the succeeding volumes, of which Doctor Thorne is the third.

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    Reviews for The Small House at Allington

    4.5/5

    48 ratings13 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Too much, probably, is made of this being one of "the Barsetshire novels," seeing that Trollope did not at first include it with the five others classed in that category, and that there is no need whatsoever to have read any of them to be drawn deeply into the world of its characters -- characters the creation of whose palpable, individual realness is the author's great gift. The Small House at Allington is remarkable for the balance accorded to six different social strata: (1) the upper reaches of the aristocracy (the De Courcy family and also the first appearance of Plantagenet Palliser); (2) the minor gentry, represented by the squire Dale of Allington and his presumptive heir; (3) their respectable but somewhat impoverished dependents (Mrs. Dale and her two daughters, Bell and Lily, whose love interests provide the main substance of the plot); (4) the world of men who must work to make their way in the world (in which category fall most of the suitors of the novel); (5) those on the fringe of "respectability" (Mrs. Roper's boarding house in London); and (6) the class of domestic servants (especially one Hopkins, head gardener at Allington -- but Trollope seems to make an effort to portray other members of this class when the occasion provides an opportunity). Dozens of other minor characters appear briefly and vividly in the spotlight, each animated with the spark of life.The plot is unspectacular in the extreme, but for lovers of Trollope, the ability to understand the drama and heroism of ordinary life, as well as its tedium, pettiness, and villainy, will always be his special appeal. This novel is slow, perhaps, to seize the reader's interest -- at least, so I found it -- but in the end the volume acquires a remarkable momentum from the progress of its various subplots and possesses in the final two hundred pages a sort of urgency in its narrative momentum that carries it briskly along. For me, the "hobbledehoyhood" of Johnny Eames is sometimes hard to bear. Trollope even says at the end of the novel that "I feel I have been in fault in giving such prominence to a hobbledehoy." But biographers tell us that such was Trollope in his youth, so a grateful reader is, I suppose, bound to cherish a special feeling for Johnny Eames also.At one moment a character arrives at his sister-in-law's house in London and is obliged to wait several moments while the servant changes into livery before answering the knock at the door -- for it is thus that the daughter of an earl clings to the trappings of her rank. I love such glimpses into the ways of a vanished world, and they are one of the charms of reading Trollope. But the ways of the human heart have changed less than its outward customs, and the twenty-first-century reader will encounter the shock of recognition several dozen times in the course of reading The Small House at Allington.The handsome Oxford University Press edition, a bargain at the price, has an insightful introduction by James R. Kincaid. If only it were presented as an afterword! Is there really any point in giving away the plot of a novel?

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      The Small House at Allington is the fifth (out of six) in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series by Anthony Trollope. Having read the previous in the series I knew what to expect. Not dramatic events and a fast moving plot, but gentle humor and insightful observations on human nature - well-rounded, believable and real characters that we come to know very well. I had some problems with the household at Allington, the widowed mother and the two young daughters that are courted by various men. Lily Dale are clearly the "heroine" but she was the most annoying of them all. So delicate, so hypersensitive a nature, but also manipulative in all her servility. Ok, I suppose she is to be pitied, but it's hard to really feel for her, when she responds as she does.Johnny Eames are one of the suiters - but very wimpish - it's funny to follow his route from a young "hobbledehoy" to become a man. Specially when he's taking under the protection of Lord de Guest - also the old Squire Dale I finally loved more than all the others. These two elderly men offered a wonderful balance with their course manners and hard-headed approach to life. And the "scoundrel" Crosbie was perhaps the most interesting to follow - we almost pity him in his downfall.I can't recommend the Barsetshire-series warmly enough - and the reading by Simon Vance. It's a wonderful "shire" to be brought back to.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Trollope in slightly bleaker mode: this fifth book in the Barsetshire Chronicles is a caustic look at the way the marriage market works for upper and upper-middle class families in mid-Victorian England. Various young people are trying to hitch up, playing a complicated game in which affection and the prospect of future happiness have become negotiable qualities to trade off against social and financial advantage. Picking the right partner could give you financial security and the first steps on the road to power; a mistake could destroy your career or leave you on the shelf. Plus ça change. In a sense, this is the plot of all Victorian fiction: what's different about this book is the extent to which Trollope pushes the cynical nature of the participants' calculations into the foreground. And the way he makes it clear that these actions have serious, long term consequences, not just for the ambitious young men and women and their relatives (who clearly deserve what they get), but also for innocent bystanders. Not everyone ends badly: there is at least one love story that comes unspectacularly to a kind of happy-end. But this isn't a book that you should give as an engagement present.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      What a delightful story! The characters lead us to hope that we will see them again.
    • 3/5
      The Small House at Allington is the fifth book in Trollope's six-volume The Chronicles of Barsetshire series, although Trollope initially resisted cataloging it as part of the series; Small House really hones in on Trollope's theme of tempus fugit and sic transit gloria mundi: the old ways grudgingly giving ground to the new (when they're not forcing themselves on the new at gunpoint in anticipation of a fresh infusion of cash...). This theme is sounded in its major key in Adolphus Crosbie's throwing over Lily Dale a mere fortnight after becoming affianced to her, in favor of an alliance with an earl's daughter, Lady Alexandrina De Courcy. A secondary theme, however, is that of suicide and/or suicidal impulses: a surprising number of characters entertain them here.While I never lost interest in it, and the book was filled with interesting, dramatic presentations of Victorian mores, upper class "twits of the year" and Horatio Algeresque expectations, the book as a whole just didn't hang together for me: after I was finished reading it, I was struck at how bloody artificial it all was. No, I don't expect my fictions, even my Victorian fictions, to be tied up with a nice pink bow at the end, but I could never lose sight of Trollope's grubby auctorial paws moving the characters about here. The Small House at Allington is better written than the first book in the series, The Warden (Trollope's attempt at an anti-Dickensian novel, which shared some characteristics with Dickens' style), but its net effect is very similar. Yes, the examples of bad nobility were amusing and plentiful; yes, I was amazed at how often characters even half-seriously contemplated becoming felos de se; but "Trollope's most charming heroine, the bewitching Lily Dale" (to quote the back-cover pitch), was anything but, and her devotion to the social-climbing git who jilted her, Adolphus Crosbie, while embodying the Victorian ideal of femininity, makes her look like a hopelessly narcissistic adolescent more in love with the idea of being in love than someone who is actually in love. Lily's ego is quite strong -- as is the whole family's, and Trollope frequently remarks on the stubbornness of the Dale character, which does not always redound to a Dale's benefit -- and it is much to be doubted if her self-regard and self-involvement is less than that of her one-time fiancé. Supposedly even Trollope had begun to tire of Lily by the time he wrote the last book in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, The Last Chronicle of Barset; I find it nothing short of incredible that he ever thought that much of her in the first place. (I prefer the "Oil of Lebanon" heiress Martha Dunstable, from Doctor Thorne, Framley Parsonage and, I read, The Last Chronicle of Barset; but Mary Thorne from Doctor Thorne is a more congenial heroine than Lily Dale too.)
    • 5/5
      one of the best things said about trollope. hawthorne admired anyhony's novels: he had written to fields the year before that they were 'solid and substantial, written on the strength of beef and through the inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business and not suspecting that they were made a show of.' the hawthorne was nathaniel, and the fields, i'm pretty sure was kate.
    • 5/5
      Love anything by Anthony Trollope and the reader is fabulous! He is truly a superb voice actor!
    • 4/5
      This novel, the fifth in Trollope's Barsetshire series, actually takes place far from Barchester, in the country. Lily Dale, the heroine, is jilted by her fiance and spend the rest of the book dealing with it. Adolphus Crosbie - her ex-fiance - ends up marrying Lady Alexandrina of the de Courcys. Unsurprisingly, it turns out to be an enormous mistake and Trollope realistically chronicles their pre- and post- marital disintegration. Another character, Johnny Eames - Lily's close friend and would-be suitor - works in London and suffers romantic mishaps with his landlord's daughter. Although Trollope's audience loved Lily, she was rather annoying. Of course her love for Crosbie was enduring, intense, pure and selfless - all the stuff that people usually praise - but in practice it came out extremely grating. At first, when they were happily engaged, her behavior was complete devotion. She came on so strong that she was practically setting herself up for a fall. For example, she told Crosbie that nothing he could do would destroy her trust in him. Even if he hadn't dumped her, it still seems like there would have been disappointment. Crosbie could never love her as much as she loved him and while she may have been fine with this - she wouldn't be happy with herself, thinking that she caused his social position to be tarnished. Marrying her, he would never again be the man about town and would presumably end up financially strapped, with many children and always a little resentful of his country wife. Even after he married, she still spouted some creepy ideas that her and Crosbie's engagement would be the one that was recognized in heaven.Lily's reaction to Crosbie's treachery did contain some grief, but she also forgave him. Really, it happened almost immediately - not normal. She wouldn't even let anyone around her badmouth the jilter. In other non-Crosbie respects, Lily tended towards the light and flippant so she was sufficiently tolerable for a whole book.Crosbie himself had plenty of that sweet self-delusion making him out to be better than he was. No one can especially like him, given his actions, but his second engagement and wedding proved extremely interesting. Everyone knows it won't work and he did deserve unhappiness that way. He'd made a bad bargain - marrying a penniless titled woman always more expensive than one without noble connections. Then it turned out that he hated his wife's father, the earl, but couldn't appropriately express it since he married her partly for the influence. All the slings and arrows to his checkbook are accounted and worried over by Crosbie. Alexandrina, as befitting her status, is a little distant and doesn't love him. Their end is not surprising. Johnny starts out an awkward 'hobbledehoy' and apparently becomes a man at the end. His fanciful love for Lily is disrupted by her engagement to Crosbie and he later gets in trouble with Amelia Roper, his landlady's daughter. Amelia wants a husband - Trollope isn't too hard on her, she was neither the best or the worst - but Johnny clearly divides women into saints like Lily and lowly scum like Amelia.Another subplot - one more related to the de Courcy world - revolves around a possible affair between Plantagenet Palliser and Lady Dumbello (the former Griselda Grantly). Both seem unlikely for one - the work-obsessed, uptight Parliament member/heir to the Duke of Omnium and the ultrafashionable, monosyllabic, cold but socially adept wife of dim Dumbello. Griselda is apparently in danger because she talks to Palliser. He rather lamely tries to pursue her. Still, important because it's the first introduction of Palliser, who will go on to be the main character in Trollope's next series.Even though Lily is annoying, the usual good points about the novel - Trollope's superb prose and psychological characterization of people and relationships.
    • 5/5
      The Small House at Allington2007, Blackstone Audiobooks, Read by Simon Vance Lily and Bell Dale, along with their widowed mother, reside in the small house at Allington, as dependents of their uncle, old Squire Dale. As the novel opens, both girls are of age to marry. The Squire wishes Bell to marry his nephew and heir, Bernard Dale. But Bell will have none of it; she loves Bernard as a brother, nothing more. Lily, however, the younger of the two, falls hopelessly in love with Bernard’s London friend, Adolphus Crosbie. Mr. Crosbie, a government official, is stylish, charismatic, socially adept, and, as it turns out, a “confounded scoundrel.” Whilst engaged to Lily, his unapologetic social climbing leads him to also engage Lady Alexandrina De Courcy – a move he will justly live to rue. Before poor Lily has time to recover herself, well-meaning but hopelessly awkward Johnny Eames, declares his abiding love and asks for her hand. Johnny, foil to Crosbie’s suave charisma, is, as Trollope wittingly informs, “hobbledehoy”:“Such young men are often awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease, when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates. Social meetings are periods of penance to them, and any appearance in public will unnerve them. They go much about alone, and blush when women speak to them. In truth, they are not as yet men whatever the number may be of their years; and as they are no longer boys, the world has found for them the ungraceful name of hobbledehoy.” (Ch 4)The Small House at Allington is completely endearing as the inexperience of youth navigates courtship and matrimony: the dilemma of romantic love versus practical match versus financial alliance. Indeed, where love is concerned, Trollope observes that, “It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.” (Ch 14)Each time I finish one of the Barsetshire novels, I think that it must be the best one yet, so delightful have I found this series. It is no different for me with The Small House at Allington. And Simon Vance as narrator continues to push the limits of excellence. Highly recommended!
    • 4/5
      This is one of those books where 1-5 stars doesn't do it. On a 100 point scale, it's in the high 80s. There are moments that are really wonderful, comic and insightful. Like many triple-deckers, there are moments where it drags. Trollope is clearly setting up future books; not only The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire, but also the Palliser novels that are to come. The latter case is interesting from the perspective of his career, but in this book it adds a little-developed sub-plot with no connection to the main action of the book. Still, the sisters Lily and Belle Dale are interesting contrasts in how marriage and love effect young women. It isn't quite as good as The Warden, but it measures up to the others very well.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed it, but Lily Dale gets wearing to this 21st century readers. As usual, the Trollopian way with all characters is on display. Especially delicious: the squire, the earl, Lady Julia, Hopkins, everyone at Burton Crescent.
    • 4/5
      I love Trollope, ever since I watched the Pallisers on BBC. It is his incredible perceptiveness about people that I love and his humor and the way that he effortlessly creates a whole political and social world...I found this one totally engrossing though the ending was not the entirely happy ending I would have preferred and his heroinne Lily got on my nerves. Unlike Glencora who I love love loved! A little of that story got into this one...Trollope is a difficult author to know which book to recommend as his stories tend to overlap. I say, start by watching the Palliser series from BBC.
    • 4/5
      As Robert Burnes wrote: "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these - it could have been." Reading 'Small House at Allington' made me realize that Trollope is the literary precedent for Seinfeld: a show where nothing actually happens. Just like our daily lives. Yet in that nothing, all the dramas of ancient tragedy and comedy, and all the great myths ever told, work themselves out again and again. So in this novel, no romance actually came to fruition. I thought Crosby would either fail like Satan or succeed heroically, but he and his marriage just whimper off into oblivion. Belle's marriage is safe, but somehow second-rate in its safety. I thought Lilly's mother would marry the Squire, and Johnny would marry the Lilly. But she never grows up, and remains annoying in her adolescent squeamishness. Nothing gets quite resolved. Despite the exquisite prose and idyllic setting - in which Agatha Christie would have planted a big fat murder, but Trollope only plants dry seeds - this book only illuminates the muddle of the ordinary. And that's why it is a truly modern novel. Yet I still felt sad in the end for what could have been.