Fanny Trollope

Born in Bristol in 1779, Fanny Trollope was the daughter of a country parson. She married a barrister in 1809, and produced seven children in eight years, but with her husband in financial trouble she decided to take three of the children to America where living was cheaper. She also hoped to set up her son Henry in business.

The bazaar she built was a disaster, and she returned to England on borrowed money, but the book of those years, Domestic Manners of the Americans, was an instant bestseller, and changed her life forever.

Still plagued by financial problems, the family were forced to flee to Belgium, where Fanny became the sole breadwinner, supporting the family by writing, while nursing her husband and Henry, who were both now dying. She wrote until she was seventy-seven, producing forty-one books in twenty-four years.

With their accurate and wickedly satirical look at the modes of contemporary Regency and early Victorian life, her books caused outrage among many, but were widely admired by many of the leading writers of the day, among them Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

This new biography, the result of extensive research in the UK, Europe and Australia, draws on little-known family albums and papers to present a compelling portrayal of a remarkable woman writer. A vivid and engaging life story, it also importantly makes clear the formative influence that Fanny had on her son Anthony's work.