John Caldigate

In April 2001 we began John Caldigate (first published 1877). This was the last of our three "unknown" but to us great novels by Trollope. It followed hard upon Ayala's Angel which had followed Is He Popenjoy?. As I had been doing for about three years, each week I wrote an essay or essays in the form of postings to Trollope-l on the chapters we had read for that week. As I had been doing increasingly for Ayala's Angel and Is He Popenjoy?, my weekly postings were written from a psycholanalytical and feminist and political point of view; I also explored the autobiographical roots of this fiction, specially Trollope's exploration of male sexuality in his fiction. I accompanied these with descriptions and commentary on the illustrations by Francis Mosley for the Folio Society edition of John Caldigate Once again the conversation of the group as a whole more generally slowly emerges and moves back and forth from other more traditional points of view: character, scenes, personal impulses when we read; of the three reads of Trollope's "unknown" books, John Caldigate elicited the least number of postings. Enthusiasm was wearing off -- though most people declared that Caldigate was a great novel, bolder than Ayala's Angel and more dramatic and emotionally effective than Is He Popenjoy?.

Participants included Gwynn Bailey, Nicola Brown, Jennifer Carnell, Cynthia, Jo Ann Citron, DeeDee, Sigmund Eisner, Marie Fitzwilliam, Don Flanagan, Judy Geater, Wayne Gisslen, Katy Edgecomb; Lisa Guardini, Kristi Jalics, RJKeefe, Imme Mallin, Pat Maroney, Beth McMcMillan, Howard Merkin, M. Mendelssohn, Anthony Monta, Rory O'Farrell, Michael O'Neile, Marion Poller, Michael, Powe, Duffy Pratt, Teresa Ransom, Angela Richardson, Gail Savage, Suzanne Rosenthal Shumway, June Siegel, Doris White, Dagny Wilson, Robert Wright, Todd Yelrom

John Caldigate was written between 3 February and 21 July 1877, just after Trollope wrote the last of the Palliser or Parliamentary novels, The Duke's Children. It did help his reputation. After producing several novels which were strongly criticized or didn't sell very well, John Caldigate was liked and sold, and reviewed favorably. Trollope hadn't placed it quickly, but when he had he got £1,200 from Chapman and Hall for exclusive book rights, and £600 from Blackwood's for serial rights. It was serialised in Blackwood's Magazine from April 1878 to June 1879; there are altogether 64 chapters and they appeared in instalments of 4 or 5 chapters each. As in the case of Is He Popenjoy?, copies of the novel had been hard to find and few of us appeared to have a text which followed the original instalment edition, or even an edition which followed the first volumed edition, we decided we would simply we read six chapters each week as the closest we could approach to the original rhythms Trollope intended.

April

• April 1: Introduction: Immediate Context and Concise Calendar: Say rather Mrs John Caldigate or John Caldigate's Wife; Publication History & Availability
• April 8: Chapters 1- 6: The Gold-Fields of Australia; Folking; The opening of John Caldigate (the fifth time through); Landscapes, Houses & Ships; Strong Characters, Mrs Smith and Fathers and Sons; Mrs Smith & Emily Viner ("Journey to Panama"); Father and Son; The Goldfinder; The Satire on Novels and Thomson's Seasons (Molly Shand and Madame Roland; Daniel Caldigate; The Use of Suspense.
• April 15: Chapters 7- 12: Gold mining; Mrs Smith and gold; SS Great Britain; Of ships & housemaids without brooms; Mrs. Smith and the other ship passengers; Gold Mining in Australia; Mademoiselle Cettini and Mrs Smith; Work in Victorian England -- and Victorian Novels; Third class(?); What is wrong with that fellow?; Shipboard Romance; Daniel Caldigate; Mrs. Smith's attractions; What's wrong with Euphemia?; The Vampirish Female and Colonel Osborne
• April 22: Chapters 13-18: Mrs Bolton; Characters Up Close; John Caldigate, Basil and a real life occurrence recorded; How did John Caldigate and Mrs John Caldigate (aka Mrs Smith, Mademoiselle Cettini) break up?: We are not told.
• April 29: Chapters 19-24: Euphemia Caldigate; Mrs Bolton and Mr Daniel Caldigate; The Missing Story or Narrative; Its Undecidability; The Letter; A Bold and Admirable Novel

May

• May 6: Chapters 25-30: John Caldigate and Mrs Smith; Another Exploration of the Male Pysche Under Stress; Hester; Hester and Mrs B, and the Grandchild; Mrs. Bolton, the mother; JC: Hester/The Countess(Lady Anna; Hester and Mrs Bolton: Power Struggle between Mother and Daughter; John Caldigate: An Ad Hoc Design?; Why I like John Caldigate so much; A Mature Novel; Blackmail; Bigamy in Victorian Novels: Anthony Trollope's Uses
• May 13: Chapters 31-36 :Trollope and son in Australia as rival to Dickens' son in Australia; John Caldigate: A Post-Colonial Novel?; Hester's Spoken Rationales v her Behavior and State of Mind; Die Vernon, Euphemia Smith (Caldigate?) & Hester Bolton (Caldigate?); Scott and Trollope: Plot and Hero Types: "hero violating a moral law" and having to undergo a punitive ordeal to be restored to the community, or Victim-Hero
• May 20: Chapters 37-42: The Trial; Buying Off Tormentors with Money; The Jury's Verdict Understandable
• May 27: Chapters 43-48: Father and Daughter; Comic Deus Ex Machina on the Way; A Certain Lack of Inwardness; A Detective or Mystery Story; Mariana and the Moated Grange; Scott and Trollope: Plot and Hero Types; Mrs John Caldigate; Mrs Smith As a Stalking Horse for Venom

June

• June 3: Chapters 49-54: Resonances of the Bigamy Charge; Falling off in Intensity into Envelopes (A Deus Ex Machina); Framing Women in "Sensation" Novels & Imprisonment for Women in Trollope's Novels; Imprisonment for Women in Victorian Literature - a P.S.
• June 10: Chapters 55-60: John Caldigate: Bagwax; Resifting Evidence & Mysteries
• June 17: Chapters 61-64: The Ending

About the Illustrations by

• The Novel as Visualized by Francis Mosley in the 1995 Folio Society John Caldigate Storytelling through the Pictures: Weekly Descriptions and Commentary by Ellen