ABSTRACT
Despite the enduring interest in material culture studies of Victorian literature, very few critics have singled out Anthony Trollope as an author who uses material objects in strategic and significant ways. Unlike the works of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Gaskell, and other major Victorian authors, Trollope’s novels are notably missing in major inquiries into material culture. Although Trollope certainly writes less about objects than some of these authors, there is also a tendency in Trollope studies to regard objects, when and where they actually appear in the text, as realist scene dressing. The relative scarcity of narratologically or symbolically prominent objects in Trollope novels should actually draw our attention that much more powerfully to the objects that Trollope does describe in detail. It should also show us that we must read Trollope’s objects differently than we have in the past, using material culture to uncover a particularly Trollopian way of understanding and dealing with the material world. In this essay, I argue that objects and descriptions of material culture often appear around and in tandem with descriptions of female subjectivity and gendered notions of value. Careful examination of objects, such as the trousseau (or wedding chest), reveals Trollope’s deep engagement with and critique of the idea of objects as repositories of self-worth, souvenirs of biographical significance, and non-market registers of value.
