‘Stephen Wall, “Trollope and Character” (1988) and Other Essays on Victorian Literature’, with an introduction by Nicholas Shrimpton, gathers together the principal publications of the distinguished scholar-critic Stephen Wall. Wall was widely regarded for his writings on the Victorian novel, and this book contains all his major writings about Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, including the full text of his book-length study ‘Trollope and Character’ (1988) and a history of Dickens’s reception. Alongside these texts are included Wall’s reflections on Jane Austen and George Eliot and on other aspects of nineteenth-century fiction, as well as his influential essay on the ways in which English novels should be edited. Together, the essays communicate the mixture of learning, human sympathy, critical intelligence and dry wit that made Wall’s voice so distinctive and trusted.

Seamus Perry is professor of English in the English Faculty at Oxford University, UK, and a fellow of the university’s Balliol College. He is a co-editor of the journal Essays in Criticism, of which Stephen Wall was, for many years, the principal editor. Perry has published books on Coleridge, Tennyson and T. S. Eliot, and articles and essays on various aspects of nineteenth-century English literature.

Preface; Introduction: ‘Stephen Wall and Trollope’ by Nicholas Shrimpton; PART ONE: ON TROLLOPE; 1. The Artist as Philistine (1984); 2. Trollope and Character (1988); PART TWO: ON DICKENS AND OTHERS; 3. George Eliot and Her Readers (1965); 4. Jane Austen’s Judgments (1968); 5. Dickens: New Words and Old Opinions (1969); 6. Dickens and His Readers (1970); 7. Dickens in 1970 (1971); 8. Annotated English Novels? (1982); 9. Affective Intentions (1985); 10. Virtuoso Variations (1987); 11. Going Beyond the Repertory (1990); 12. A Little Local Irritation (1998); Index.

‘This welcome book collects the work of a master Trollopian and luminous Victorianist in a single volume. With [Wall’s] landmark study of Trollope and Character at its centre […] the collection is indispensable reading for scholars in the field.’
—Lauren M. E. Goodlad, author of The Victorian Geopolitical Aesthetic: Realism, Sovereignty, and Transnational Experience