The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Hello and welcome to the last book in our Trollope project. This one is one of his "shorter" novels so will take 8 weeks.

June 14-20, 2020: Ch 1-8
June 21-27: Ch 9-16
June 28-July 4: Ch 17-24
July 5-11: Ch 25-32
July 12-18: Ch 33-40
July 19-25: Ch 41-48
July 26-Aug 1: Ch 49-56
Aug 2-8: Ch 57-64

Written in 1878, when Trollope would have been 63, Ayala's Angel was published in 1881, the year after the publication of The Duke's Children.

I found this quote on the Trollope society pages:

"...possibly the most unjustly neglected of all Trollope's novels ... and yet it is one of the most charming of all the long list. It is the lightest and airiest of them all, it has a gaiety and happiness and playfulness that Trollope, gay and happy though he often was, never exceeded.... what vigour of scene and creation, what vitality of action and dialogue it contains." Walpole

I look forward to enjoying the lighter side of Trollope over the summer.

Please feel free to post any other information about this stage of Trollope's career or about what was happening in the world or in England at the time of this novel.

I am in for this one. Some light reading will be good!

Delighted to read a new (to me) Trollope novel.

I am in. We begin today, don't we?

That's right, Daniela.

I have just found out that my free Kindle edition is a pdf with small letters, and as it is rather difficult to read I am thinking about buying a Kindle edition from Amazon...(Project Gutenberg is currently not accessible from Italy). Has someone purchased a Kindle edition? There are many and I don't know which one is best: a Jame-Books edition with other six Trollope's novels, or a Golden Classic Press Edition? Happy if someone can help me!

I have read several books from the Delphi Complete Works of Anthony Trollope. In the US it is sold for $2.99 now. There is a table of contents that allows you to get directly to the book you want.

Daniela wrote: "I have just found out that my free Kindle edition is a pdf with small letters, and as it is rather difficult to read I am thinking about buying a Kindle edition from Amazon...(Project Gutenberg is ..."

I got Amazon's free Kindle version. Is it available on the Italian site (I'm assuming your Kindle is linked to the Italian Amazon domain)?

It's a regular ebook, not a PDF, so the text size can be changed. Mine works fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Ayalas-Angel-A...

Thank you Lori but from Italy I cannot purchase the free kindle edition :-( and it is not available to buy. Thank you Theresa I will give a look.

Thank you very much Theresa! I found it and it is amazing! 47 novels for 2.88 euro!! :-)

So glad you could get it! And there are illustrations, too.

Daniela wrote: "I have just found out that my free Kindle edition is a pdf with small letters, and as it is rather difficult to read I am thinking about buying a Kindle edition from Amazon...(Project Gutenberg is ..."

I have also got a kindle edition of The Delphi Complete Works of Anthony Trollope which includes Ayala’s Angel. I had to pay £1.99 (in the UK) but have used it for most of the Trollope reads and it has been fine. The only downside with a complete works edition is navigating back and forward to individual pages or using keywords to locate something in the text.

I just started the book yesterday. I've read chapter one and I'm glad to be part of the read.

I'm quite disappointed that I'm coming in at the end of the Trollope project as I've always wanted to read him. I was especially intrigued that Julian Fellows commented he was one of his favorite authors and found a lot of inspiration from his work.

Brenda, please feel free to comment on any of the books we read. We will reply, if maybe not right away.

Thank you Rosemarie! I’ve actually started from your beginning with the Trolllope project lately and have just finished the Warden and started Barchester Towers so I may look in at the comments. I hadn’t even thought of that.

Barchester Towers is one of my favourites. Slope is such a slimy character.

I think Barchester Towers is my favorite Trollope that we read. So many great characters, and Trollope did a great job bringing them to life!

Rosemarie, I wanted to laugh out loud when the Archdeacon met slope, especially when Slope shook his hand! It was terrific.

Thanks Lori for the recommendation! I’ve only just begun but do like his writing. Well, I’m glad I went on after Alaya, I wasn’t such a fan of that. This series is more up my alley !

Where’s that time machine that I can go back a few years time to get in on the project.

Yes that's one of the frustrations of Goodreads, too many good books and discussions to be able to keep up with it all!