Anthony Trollope: Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

20. CHAPTER XX - "THE WAY WE LIVE NOW" AND "THE PRIME MINISTER"--CONCLUSION (continued)

I have now come to the end of that long series of books written by myself with which the public is already acquainted. Of those which I may hereafter be able to add to them I cannot speak; though I have an idea that I shall even yet once more have recourse to my political hero as the mainstay of another story. When The Prime Minister was finished, I at once began another novel, which is now completed in three volumes, and which is called Is He Popenjoy? There are two Popenjoys in the book, one succeeding to the title held by the other; but as they are both babies, and do not in the course of the story progress beyond babyhood, the future readers, should the tale ever be published, will not be much interested in them. Nevertheless the story, as a story, is not, I think, amiss. Since that I have written still another three-volume novel, to which, very much in opposition to my publisher, I have given the name of The American Senator. [Footnote: The American Senator and Popenjoy have appeared, each with fair success. Neither of them has encountered that reproach which, in regard to The Prime Minister, seemed to tell me that my work as a novelist should be brought to a close. And yet I feel assured that they are very inferior to The Prime Minister.] It is to appear in Temple Bar, and is to commence its appearance on the first of next month. Such being its circumstances, I do not know that I can say anything else about it here.

And so I end the record of my literary performances,--which I think are more in amount than the works of any other living English author. If any English authors not living have written more--as may probably have been the case--I do not know who they are. I find that, taking the books which have appeared under our names, I have published much more than twice as much as Carlyle. I have also published considerably more than Voltaire, even including his letters. We are told that Varro, at the age of eighty, had written 480 volumes, and that he went on writing for eight years longer. I wish I knew what was the length of Varro's volumes; I comfort myself by reflecting that the amount of manuscript described as a book in Varro's time was not much. Varro, too, is dead, and Voltaire; whereas I am still living, and may add to the pile.