This authoritative biography from the distinguished Trollopian and editor of Trollope's Letters, draws a picture of an engaging, contradictory, and extraordinary man and writer. N. John Hall, alive to his subject's shortcomings as well as to his startling powers, contends that Trollope was a comic genius who, for all his productivity, was a writer of care and judgement, one who left behind him more good novels than any other writer in the language. Hall, drawing on Trollope's nearly seventy books, along with all the relevant historical evidence, writes with an unparalleled knowledge of his subject, vividly and with humour, and presents a focused and penetrating portrait of the author.