SOURCE: "Other Works," in Anthony Trollope, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978, pp. 174-91.

In the following excerpt, Pollard contends that Trollope's short stories generally lack focus and intensity. He does note some exceptions, however, particularly "Malachi's Cove."

Adapting what Trollope applied only to the years 1859 to 1871, 'I feel confident that in amount no other writer contributed so much . . . to English literature.' (Autobiography, ch. 15) To his forty-seven or so novels must be added a mass of miscellaneous and occasional writing. . . .

To begin with, there are five collections of short stories—Tales of All Countries (1861) and its Second Series (1863), Lotta Schmidt and Other Stories (1867), An Editor's Tales (1870) and Why Frau Frohmann Raised Her Prices: and Other Stories (1882). Many of these are occasional in the sense that their origins seem traceable to incidents in Trollope's own life, not least to his travels. Many are set in foreign locations. To take only three...