As Bradford Allen Booth points out in his introduction to The Tireless Traveler, "The casual reader, glancing over Trollope's bibliography, probably overlooks the twelve [sic] titles of biography, essays and travels, for the world has refused to accept Trollope's extravagant estimate of these books, and rightly chooses to remember him as a novelist." As a novelist Trollope was indeed prolific and successful. The Barsetshire novels alone comprise fourteen volumes; the Palliser novels, sixteen; and there are at least half a dozen other novels that Trollope enthusiasts believe to be "major" works. Of the nonfiction only An Autobiography continues to be widely read.

The works of nonfiction prose, though, are rewarding in their own right and often reveal explicitly aspects of Trollope's character that are only suggested in the novels. The extent of his nonfiction writing is typically Trollopian when one takes into account the bulk of his personal...