SOURCE: Introduction to Tales of All Countries: Second Series, by Anthony Trollope, Arno Press, 1981, pp. i-viii.

In this essay, Stone judges the stories in the second series of Tales of All Countries superior to those in the first, reflecting Trollope's "increasing artistic commitment to the short story form."

Trollope's second series of Tales of All Countries (1863) shows a considerable advance over the first volume. The stories in this collection provide more in the way of local color, more allowance for passion among the characters, and more unforced humor and pathos than were evident in their generally anti-romantic predecessors. As in the first volume, Trollope's emphasis is on the universality of human experience, but now he permits some room for unconventional behavior as well. Two of the stories, "Mrs. General Talboys" and "A Ride Across Palestine," were deemed too indelicate to be offered to readers of the Cornhill Magazine...