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"A Nouvelle" ('Men of the Day. No. 69')
Sir Leslie Ward ('Spy').
5 April 1873
Watercolour
Vanity Fair.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
With Anthony Trollope I was more fortunate, for my kind friend, Mr. James Virtue, the publisher, invited me to his charming house at Walton, where I was able to observe the novelist by making a close study of him from various points of view. [Continued below]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Above: Spy matches his caricature of Anthony Trollope (centre, 1873) with illustrator John Tenniel (left, 1878) and military man and poet Sir Francis Doyle, Bart. (right, 1877) in Forty Years of 'Spy", facing page 104.
We went a delightful walk together to St. George's Hill, and while Trollope admired the scenery, I noted the beauties of Nature in another way, committed those mental observations to my mental notebook, and came home to what fun I could get out of them.
The famous novelist was not in the least conscious of my eagle eye, and imagining I should let him down gently, Mr. Virtue did not warn him, luckily for me [104/105] for I had an excellent subject. When the caricature appeared, Trollope was furious, and naturally did not hesitate to give poor Virtue a "blowing-up," whereupon I in turn received a stiff letter from Mr. Virtue. It surprised me not a little, that he should take the matter so seriously; but for a time Mr. Virtue was decidedly "short" with me. Luckily, however, his displeasure only lasted a short period, for he was too genuinely amiable a man to let such a thing make a permanent difference to his ordinary behaviour.
I had portrayed Trollope's strange thumb, which he held erect whilst smoking, with his cigar between his first and second fingers, his pockets standing out on either side of his trousers, his coat buttoned once and then parting over a small but comfortable corporation. The letterpress on this occasion I consider was far more severe than my caricature, for I had not praised the books with faint damns as being "sufficiently faithful to the external aspect of English life to interest those who see nothing but its external aspects and yet sufficiently removed from all depth of humanity to conciliate all respected parents." Nor had I implied that "his manners are a little rough, as is his voice; but he is nevertheless extremely popular amongst his friends, while by his readers he is looked upon with gratitude due to one who has for so many years amused without ever shocking them. Whether this reputation would not last longer if he had shocked them occasionally, is a question which the bookseller of a future generation will be able to answer." [Forty Years of 'Spy', pp. 104-105]
Ironically, the caricature appeared in Vanity Fair after a succession of society novels which included Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblewaite (1871), Ralph the Heir (1871), and The Golden Lion of Granpère (1872), titles from his Chronicles of Barsetshire, among which the most read remain The Warden (1855), Barchester Towers (1857), and Framley Parsonage (1861); The Way We Live Now, probably his most celebrated work, did not appear under the Chapman and Hall imprint until 1875.
Ward, Leslie ['Spy']. Forty Years of 'Spy'. London: Chatto and Windus, 1915.
Ward, Leslie ['Spy']. "A Nouvelle" ('Men of the Day. No. 69') 5 April 1873. Vanity Fair. Watercolour, 1873. National Portrait Gallery, London. Web. 27 July 2023.
Created 27 July 2023
