SOURCE: "Independently True to Love," in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4615, September 13, 1991, p. 24.

In the following review of the fourth volume of Betty Jane Breyer's edition of The Complete Short Stories, Letwin argues that the female characters in Trollope's short fiction defy stereotypes of Victorian women as passive and dependent; instead, she contends, Trollope offers "spirited, independent, self-moving, unresentful heroines."

Although Anthony Trollope was and is regarded as a writer of eminent respectability, these stories [in The Complete Short Stories, Volume 4: Courtship and Marriage] about courtship and marriage may shock the reader today. They violate our stereotypes of Victorian women. None of his eight heroines is a frail ornament, encased in a corset, terrified of passion and desiring at all costs to avoid spinsterhood. None can be regarded as an object of pity, though some experience misery. But neither is any of them a feminist virago.

The collection of...