TROLLOPE, Anthony

Autograph Letter Signed, to Mr. Mash (?).

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26 November Sydney, 1871. Single leaf, small octavo, conjugate leaf removed but the letter evidently complete, simple red device to head of recto, pin-holes, very good. A nice note from Anthony Trollope, politely refusing an invitation to whist during his visit to Sydney in 1871. It is rare to see a letter from Trollope's Australian stay on the market, although he was a prolific correspondent.

Together with his wife Frances, Trollope sailed for the antipodes in 1871 to visit their son Frederick, who had settled on a sheep station near Grenfell. The novelist evidently enjoyed the time he spent in the colonies, and travelled extensively. He wrote a great deal during his year-long visit, most famously his Australia and New Zealand (1873), but also drew directly on his experiences for two novels, Harry Heathcote of Gangoil (1874) and John Caldigate (1879).

The note reads: 'My wife has made an engagement for me on Monday evening (much less to my taste than your offer) which will preclude me from joining your whist table tomorrow. I did not answer your note sooner, knowing that it would make no difference in your engagements, and not being quite sure as to what I might be bound to do. Very faithfully yours Anthony Trollope.'

As this implies, whist was a passion of Trollope's, and he deeply felt the lack of available players during his Australian tour. A note printed in his Australia and New Zealand attests to what anguish the refusal must have cost him: 'I did endeavour to institute a whist table, but I found that my friends, who were wonderfully good in regard to the age and points of a sheep, and who could tell to the fraction of a penny what the wool of each was worth by the pound, could never be got to remember the highest card of the suit. I should not have minded that,' continued Trollope, 'had they not so manifestly despised me for regarding such knowledge as important.'

Not in The Letters (ed. N. John Hall).

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• libraire: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)