The Courtship of Susan Bell

By Anthony Trollope

It was at the end of the second month when Aaron took another step in advance--a perilous step. Sometimes on evenings he still went on with his drawing for an hour or so; but during three or four evenings he never asked any one to look at what he was doing. On one Friday he sat over his work till late, without any reading or talking at all; so late that at last Mrs. Bell said, "If you're going to sit much longer, Mr. Dunn, I'll get you to put out the candles."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Classics
• Release date: May 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781609779528

Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was the third son of a barrister, who ruined his family by giving up the law for farming, and an industrious mother. After attending Winchester and Harrow, Trollope scraped into the General Post Office, London, in 1834, where he worked for seven years. In 1841 he was transferred to Ireland as a surveyor's clerk, and in 1844 married and settled at Clonmel. His first two novels were devoted to Irish life; his third, La Vendée, was historical. All were failures. After a distinguished career in the GPO, for which he invented the pillar box and travelled extensively abroad, Trollope resigned in 1867, earning his living from writing instead. He led an extensive social life, from which he drew material for his many social and political novels. The idea for The Warden (1855), the first of the six Barsetshire novels, came from a visit to Salisbury Close; with it came the characters whose fortunes were explored through the succeeding volumes, of which Doctor Thorne is the third.

Reviews for The Courtship of Susan Bell

[philsyphe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This short story features a naïve nineteen-year-old called Susan who has led a sheltered life. Her mother is overprotective of her whilst her older sister tends to interfere where she isn’t needed. Therefore, when they take on a handsome young lodger, who falls in love with Susan, the courting ritual does not run smoothly.