1847

Small 8vo. Vol. I., pp. 345; Vol. II., pp. 382; Vol. III., pp. 743 (sic). [This figure is plainly a misprint for 437, as the preceding page is numbered 436.]

The plot, which Trollope considered to be as good as any he ever made, of this book, was conceived during a walk with his friend, John Merivale, around the village of Drumsna, Co. Leitrim, in the course of which they came upon the modern ruins of a country-house, as described in Chapter I. It was begun in September 1843, and finished a year after his marriage, which took place in June 1844. His mother, Mrs. Frances Trollope the novelist, arranged for its publication with Mr. Newby, who neither paid the author anything nor rendered an account of the sales which were presumably very small. The sum of £48, 6s. 9d. mentioned in the Autobiography as received for this book was probably therefore in respect of the new edition of 1859. Mr. Henry Merivale Trollope kindly informs me that another copy of the first edition in his possession contains a new and different title-page, as though the publisher, seeing that another novel had been issued, hoped to help the sale of his remaining copies by the additional words, “Author of The Kellys and the O’Kellys.” The book is in all other respects the same. This later title-page reads as follows: