Tory grandee waxes lyrical on cosying up with a Trollope
PASSIONATE feminist Keira Knightley, who is married to singer James Righton, is delighted her world view has rubbed off on their four-yearold daughter Edie. ‘When we watched Sleeping Beauty, she said, “It’s not OK that man kissed her without her permission!” I can’t tell you how pleased I was. If I don’t do anything else, I’ve managed to drum that in.’
FANCY picking up a Trollope? Sir John Major does and is urging everyone to follow suit. The former prime minister, who is vice-chair of the Trollope Society, is backing a campaign to encourage everyone to read more novels by the celebrated author of the Chronicles of Barsetshire and the Palliser novels.
Like Major, Anthony Trollope achieved his greatness from lowly beginnings — he started his career as a Post Office employee. Major is not the first Tory premier to relish the Victorian writer. Harold Macmillan famously ‘enjoyed going to bed with a Trollope’.
Sir John was only 13 when the Victorian author became his ‘companion for life’ and in 10 Downing Street he backed a successful campaign to honour the writer with a coveted plaque in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner.
So what are Sir John’s favourite Trollopes? ‘I would recommend The Warden to enjoy the principled life of the Reverend Septimus Harding,’ he tells me. ‘To my mind, Harding is the first gentleman of fiction, although Plantagenet
Palliser, later Duke of Omnium, must run him close. Harding and Palliser are the two characters most likely to convince the reader that goodness and decency do exist, and can prevail.
‘However, if the wish is to explore the lives of less principled, more duplicitous characters, I would suggest The Way We Live Now. The book is centred around a corrupt financier, Augustus Melmotte: a swindler on a grand scale.’
The ‘Pick Up A Trollope’ campaign is being launched with WHSmith and is supported by writer Joanna Trollope, a fifth-generation niece of the novelist.
Sadly, the Trollope Society trip to Florence in April has been cancelled due to travel restrictions. So it might be a question of staying at home with a Trollope this year.