Why Frau Fromann Raised Her Prices and Other Stories

"Anthony Trollope's novels have been out of fashion for many years; but of late a disposition to reconsider his place among English writers is evident." -The Literary Digest "If I have not yet said that I think Anthony Trollope the most English of the English novelists I will do so now. Of course Jane Austen and George Eliot might dispute this primacy with him, but both would fail in the comparison, the one because she was too witty and the other because she was too wise faithfully to mirror the British spirit. The perpetual play of delicate sarcasm in Jane Austen's books is as alien to the heavy sincerity of that simple soul as the deep psychological implications of George Eliot's; but the make and the manner of Trollope are exactly interpretative of it. All is plan and open in his work; if there is any cutting or thrusting it is not such as leaves the subject to shake itself before it realizes a wound; if there is any philosophizing it is not of the accusing sort which makes the reader feel the fault or the fate of the character as bound with him; and yet Trollope was a true humorist, and, as i have already insisted, a profound moralist. he surpassed the only contemporaries worthy to be named with him in very essential things as far as he surpassed those two great women in keeping absolutely the level of the English nature. He was a greater painter of manners than Thackeray because he was neither a sentimentalist or a caricaturist; and he was of a more convincing imagination than Dickens because he knew and employed the probable facts in the case and kept himself free of all fantastic contrivances....Upon the whole I should be inclined to place Trollope among the very first of those supreme novelists to whom the ever-womanly has revealed itself." -William Dean HowellsCONTENTS.WHY FRAU FROHMANN RAISED HER PRICESI. THE BRUNNENTHAL PEACOCK II. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES III. THE QUESTION OF THE MITGIFT IV. THE FRAU RETURNS TO THE SIMPLICITY OF THE OLD DAYS V. A ZWANSIGER IS A ZWANSIGER VI. HOFF THE BUTCHER VII. "AND GOLD BECOMES CHEAP" VIII. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO ANY OF THEM THE LADY OF LAUNAYI. HOW BESSY PRYOR BECAME A YOUNG LADY OF IMPORTANCE II. HOW BESSY PRYOR WOULDN'T MARRY THE PARSON III. HOW BESSY PRYOR CAME TO LOVE THE HEIR OF LAUNAY IV. HOW BESSY PRYOR OWNED THAT SHE WAS ENGAGED V. HOW BESSY PRYOR CEASED TO BE A YOUNG LADY OF IMPORTANCE VI. HOW BESSY PRYOR WAS TO BE BANISHED VII. HOW BESSY PRYOR WAS BANISHED TO NORMANDY VIII. HOW BESSY PRYOR RECEIVED TWO LETTERS FROM LAUNAY IX. HOW BESSY PRYOR ANSWERED THE TWO LETTERS, AND WHAT CAME OF IT X. HOW BESSY PRYOR'S LOVER ARGUED HIS CASE XI. HOW BESSY PRYOR RECEIVED HER LOVER XII. HOW BESSY PRYOR WAS BROUGHT BACK, AND WHAT THEN BECAME OF HER CHRISTMAS AT THOMPSON HALLI. MRS. BROWN'S SUCCESS II. MRS. BROWN'S FAILURE III. MRS. BROWN ATTEMPTS TO ESCAPE IV. MRS. BROWN DOES ESCAPE V. MRS. BROWN AT THOMPSON HALL THE TELEGRAPH GIRLI. LUCY GRAHAM AND SOPHY WILSON II. ABRAHAM HALL III. SOPHY WILSON GOES TO HASTINGS IV. MR. BROWN THE HAIRDRESSER V. ABRAHAM HALL MARRIED ALICE DUGDALEI. THE DOCTOR'S FAMILY II. MAJOR ROSSITER III. LADY WANLESS IV. THE BEETHAMITES V. THE INVITATION VI. THE ARCHERY MEETING VII. AFTER THE PARTY VIII. SIR WALTER UP IN LONDON IX. LADY DEEPBELL X. THE BIRD THAT PECKED AT THE WINDOW