In his autobiography, Trollope summed up the plot of this novel in these words: In it a young girl, who is really a lady of high rank and great wealth, though in her youth she enjoyed none of the privileges of wealth or rank, marries a tailor who has been good to her, and whom she had loved when she was poor and neglected. Trollope`s readers strongly disapproved of his allowing an heiress to marry a humble tailor, and at the end of the novel, Lady Anna, facing these same prejudices from her family and friends, emigrates to Sydney with her husband. (Trollope added, after the above description, What would they have said if I had allowed her to jilt the tailor and marry the good-looking young lord? How much louder, then, would have been the censure! )
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