Dr Thorne

It was in mid-September 1999 that our Barsetshire Marathon reached Dr Thorne. We had our conversation between then and early December when when we took off a month until New Year's Day. People had been invited to read Christmas and other short stories by Anthony Trollope. Once again 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. These "facilitating" postings of mine continued to be close readings of the text whenever I could, with some also simply in response to others, some on Trollope's sources and attitudes, some on the contemporary scene. Once again the conversation slowly emerges and moves back and forth on all sorts of things: character, scenes, personal impulses when we read. I have included many postings by other members as I could find and threaded them in according to a date or where they seemed to make sense. There were far fewer and somewhat different individuals posting for the third book of the Barsetshire series than there had been for the first two. It was also a quieter read: there was much less controversy. Sometimes this happens after a previous book has sparked strong controversy and participation. Some of us were exhausted after The Warden and Barchester Towers. So the group of people now participating included: Catherine Crean, Sigmund Eisner, Jeremy Godfrey, Laurie Guilfoyle, Beth J, Penny Klein, Patricia Maroney, Howard Merkin, Michael Powe, Duffy Pratt, Teresa Ransom, Angela Richardson, Jill Spriggs, Gene Stratton, Tyler Tichelaar, Natalie H. Tyler, Judy Warner, Dagny Wilson, Robert Wright, and Todd Yelrom. I also include parts of three "journal-essays" written by my daughter, Isobel Alice Moody, when she was about 14.

Phase I

• Introduction and Explanation of Calendar: An Explanation of the Calendar; The Place of Dr Thorne in Trollope's Life and Career; Translations; Trollope a Landscape Novelist: Dr Thorne and the First Detailed Emergence of the Barsetshire Map.
• Chapters 1-4: The Maligned Prologue; The Prologue: A Masterful Daring Story Rooted in Time, Memory, Culture, Circumstance; A New and Distinctly Different Book; Beatrice & Mary: Is it Gush, Is it Bearable?; The War of Wit Between Drs Fillgrave & Thorne -- in the Newspapers!; Wet Nurses; Dr Thorne's Fee; Don't Send for Dr Fillgrave; Dr Thorne as Trollope's Alter Ego.
• Chapters 5-9: A Full Realistic Book; The Doctor's Garden; Hats and 'The Two Uncles'; Top Hats in Trollope; Sir Roger Scatcherd, Bart & Ugly Class Bias in the Portrait of Sir Louis; Roger Scatcherd and Augustus Melmotte; Farming Children Out and The Profession of Doctor.
• Chapters 10-14: Dr Thorne at the Center of the Novel; A Novel Unfolding Dramatic Scene By Dramatic Scene; Roger Scatcherd's Alcoholism and Social Despair; Dr Thorne v Dr Fillgrave; Dr Thorne and the Lady Arabella; Mary Thorne & Lady Arabella's Illness; Mary's Illegitimacy.

Phase II

• Chapters 15-19: A Novel with Two Heroes?; A Novel of Symbolic Houses and Landscapes; The Perceptive Miss Dunstable: An Ironic Festival Figure.
• Chapters 20-23: Depth of Characters: The Proposal (of Frank Gresham to Miss Dunstable(; Sir Roger Scatcherd's Alcoholism (and the Immediate Cause of Death, An Election); "Retrospective": Mary and Being Beneath Consideration; Dr Thorne & 18th Century Mock-Heroic Novelists (Fielding); Mr Moffat Falls into Trouble; Frank as a Bully; Male Violence in Victorian Culture (Regulated Hatred); The Frank Greshams and Harry Claverings of Trollope's World.
• Chapters 24-27: The Strong Dramatic Scenes Continue; Dr Thorne and Pride and Prejudice: Parallels between the Central Married Couple; Fathers and Daughters, Fringe Gentry: Dr Thorne and Wives and Daughter; Miss Thorne Goes on a Visit; We Meet Louis Scatcherd and Crass Class Bias; Caste Arrogance, Bullying and Intimidation.
• Chapters 28-30: A Second Climax; Love Scenes in Trollope, and A Donkey Ride; Miss Dunstable's Letters; What Was the The First Novel by Anthony Trollope that People Read?

Phase III

• Chapters 31-35: Lady Arabella and Mr Oriel, Interesting "Minor" Characters; Dr Thorne as Practitioner; The Depiction of Sir Louis's Alcoholism; Mary as Tabooed Heroine; Internal Conflicts (between Dr Thorne and Roger Scatcherd over Mary; within Dr Thorne); Mr Gazebee replaces Mr Moffat; The World of the Servants (Downstairs).
• Chapters 36-39: Told In Strong Scenes, Meditations and Letters; An Epistolary Chapter; Amelia and Angela; The Mayor of Casterbridge and Hardy's Art in the light of Trollope's; The Group Meeting in November as Described and Remembered by Some of Those who Met: Our Adventures; Sutherland on Hardy.
• Chapters 40-43: Contrivance Beside the Point: Hardy and Trollope Again; Epistolarity used to create Emotional Suspense; Mary Thorne's Letter to Frank Threatened with Extinction, and then Delayed by Lady Arabella, his Mother; The Best Moment in the Book Led Into by Mary's Delayed Letter: Plangency.
• Chapters 44-47: The Definition of Duty; : Having It Both Ways; The Best Moment in the Book Led Into by Mary's Delayed Letter: Plangency; Final Assessments?; In the Sutherland Style: Why does no one ask who is Sir Roger Scatcherd's heir?; Anthony Trollope's Dr Thorne: A Critique and Explanation of Sutherland's Methodology in his "Can Jane Eyre, Was Heathcliffe and Who Told" Books.

• A Description of Four Illustrations in Contemporary Editions of Dr Thorne

Journal-Essays on Dr Thorne

by Isobel Moody, with some help from her mother, Ellen.

• Journal-Essay #1: What kinds of conflicts are depicted? People against people, meaning Dr. Thorne against Dr Fillgrave.
• Journal-Essay #2: Point of View and Setting, Rank and Money, and especially the exchanges of letters between Augusta Gresham and Lady Amelia De Courcy.

Trollope's Apollo

• A Guide to the Classics in the Barsetshire Novels of Anthony Trollope: an informative easy-to-use online guide created by students at Hendrix College and Professor Rebecca Resinski.

¹ As there aren't any good original illustrations for Dr Thorne, I have chosen pictures for this conversation in the "idyllic style," the one Millais used and Trollope seems to have strongly preferred for his books.