In 1848-9 he wrote a series of letters to the Examiner, under the editorship of John Forster, on the condition of Ireland and in defence of the policy of the Government. No remuneration for these was ever offered him.
In 1855-6, or thereabouts, he wrote several articles for the Dublin University Magazine, one on Julius Cæsar, one on Augustus Cæsar, and another, savage in its denunciation, on Competitive Examinations.
Shortly after Thackeray’s death, Trollope wrote an appreciative sketch of his late edition for the Cornhill, and this was reprinted, together with an “In Memoriam” article by Charles Dickens, in Thackeray, the Humourist, and the Man of Letters, by Theodore Taylor, published by D. Appleton, New York, 1864.
On the establishment of the Fortnightly Review in 1865 he contributed numerous articles, among them one advocating the signature of the authors to periodical writing; another in defence of fox-hunting, in answer to Freeman the historian; and two on Cicero. Many of the reviews are also from his pen.
The Pall Mall Gazette having been founded in the same year (1865), Trollope was for some time a frequent contributor, his Hunting and Clerical Sketches being afterwards reprinted in book form. He wrote on the American War, and reviewed new publications, one of which involved him in a quarrel with a friend. He was also requested to attend the May Meetings at Exeter Hall and give a graphic description of the proceedings. This resulted in only one article, A Zulu in Search of a Religion, for Trollope flatly refused to go again.
From 1859 to 1871 he records that he “wrote political articles, critical, social, and sporting articles, for periodicals, without number,” and during the journey to Australia, in 1871-2, he supplied a series of articles to the Daily Telegraph. These sundries, when he wrote his Autobiography, had brought him a sum of £7800.
UNPUBLISHED AND PROJECTED WORKS
In 1850 Trollope wrote a comedy, partly in blank verse and partly in prose, called The Noble Jilt, which was declined by George Bartley, the actor-manager. He afterwards made use of the plot in Can You Forgive Her? Nor was this his only attempt at work for the stage, for in 1869 he dramatised a scene from The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire under the title of Did He Steal It?—a comedy in three acts. This, too, was declined by the manager of the Gaiety Theatre, George Hollingshead, who had asked for it. It was, however, printed but not published.
He proposed a handbook on Ireland to John Murray, worked hard on it for some weeks, and submitted nearly a quarter of the supposed length, which was returned, nine months later, without a word. This was about 1850.
Trollope read widely with a view to writing a history of English prose fiction, beginning with Robinson Crusoe, but when Dickens and Bulwer Lytton died, his spirit flagged, and the project was abandoned. Early English drama, too, interested him greatly, and he left very many criticisms of plots and characterisation written at the end of each play.