1858
DOCTOR THORNE. | A Novel. | By Anthony Trollope, | Author of “The Three Clerks,” “Barchester Towers,” etc. | In Three Volumes. | London: | Chapman & Hall, 193 Piccadilly. | 1858. | [The right of Translation is reserved.]
Small 8vo. Vol. I., pp. iv, 305; Vol. II. pp. iv, 323; Vol. III., pp. iv, 340.
The plot of this book was sketched for Trollope by his brother, Thomas Adolphus, whom he was visiting in Florence in 1857. This was the only occasion on which he had recourse to other brains for the thread of a story. While writing it in Dublin early in 1858, he was asked to go to Egypt to arrange a postal treaty with the Pasha. He sold his book, when passing through London, to Chapman and Hall for £400, Bentley refusing to give more than £300; and finished it in Egypt, writing his allotted number of pages every day, even during sea-sickness on the terribly rough voyage to Alexandria.
By the sales, he judged this to be his most popular book.