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He Knew He Was Right (Penguin Classics) Paperback – April 1, 1996

by Anthony Trollope (Author), Frank Kermode (Introduction)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 279 ratings
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The central theme of the novel is the sexual jealousy of Louis Trevelyan who unjustly accuses his wife Emily of a liaison with a friend of her father's. As his suspicion deepens into madness, Trollope gives us a profound psychological study in which Louis' obsessive delirium is comparable to the tormented figure of Othello, tragically flawed by self-deception. Against the disintegration of the Trevelyans' marriage, a lively cast of characters explore the ideas of female emancipation and how to distinguish between obedience and subjection. Although himself no supporter of women's rights, in this novel some of Trollope's most spirited characters are single women.

Published in 1869, the same year as John Stuart Mills' The Subjection of Women and while the Divorce Act was a relative novelty, He Knew He Was Right was a timely novel, drawing a fine line between the obedience of women within marriage and their total possession by men.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    864 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Classics
  4. Publication date
    April 1, 1996
  5. Dimensions
    7.8 x 5.08 x 2.01 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0140433910
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0140433913
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was born in London to a bankrupt barrister father and a mother who, as a well-known writer, supported the family. Trollope enjoyed considerable acclaim both as a novelist and as a senior civil servant in the Post Office. He published more than forty novels and many short stories that are regarded by some as among the greatest of nineteenth-century fiction.

 

Frank Kermode is among our greatest contemporary critics. He has written and edited many works, among them The Sense of Ending and Shakespeare’s Language.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; Reissue edition (April 1, 1996)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 864 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140433910
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140433913
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.3 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.8 x 5.08 x 2.01 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 279 ratings

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  1. Anthony Trollope

    Anthony Trollope

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    Anthony Trollope (1815-82) became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire, but he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day.

    Photo by Napoleon Sarony [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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  2. Clean Bright Classics

    Clean Bright Classics

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  3. John Sutherland

    John Sutherland

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
279 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Shawn A. Henk
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing journey into the psyche of a man completely maddened by jealousy!
Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2012
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Wow! This is probably not the typical novel that one would chose to read for their first Trollope novel, but I did. This was an amazing book from start-to-finish. I found myself not being able to put it down and at over 800 pages a true page-turner nonetheless. Trollope was able to profoundly display human emotion and what power it can have on someone's own mental health. It is an amazing, yet tragic example of what the mind can do. It is well worth the read to see how love can truly cause insanity, as the book follows a man throughout his journey into madness. Read it and you won't be disappointed. In fact, you will probably want to read more Trollope novels, as I am doing now. What an amazing writer who certainly seems under appreciated. This novel is a paradigm of what excellent Victorian literature is and is one of my personal favorites.
10 people found this helpful
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Jim Ingraham
4.0 out of 5 stars Pure Victorian
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2013
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He Knew He Was Right is pure Victorian,long-winded but gradually entertaining. Characterizations are well handled. The character who drives the story is a bit overdone but again he keeps the pages turning. If you like an old-fashioned comfortably-written novel, you should enjoy this. Trollope is always worth reading. A hopelessly jealous husband relentlessly makes his wife uncomfortable with his accusations of behavior she is innocent of. She is a strong-willed woman unwilling to give in to his demands, and this is before the advent of the modern feminist movement. Lot of fun.
6 people found this helpful
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Ricardo Jasso Moedano
5.0 out of 5 stars shades of Thackeray
Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2013
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At first the story struck me as though alternate, extended versions of a small event and a similar situation in "Vanity Fair" - with Colonel Osbourne somehow reprising the role of the Marquis of Steyne, whose intimacy with Becky Sharp brought trouble between her and her husband Rawdon. In Trollope's novel Louis Trevelyan is driven over the egde by jealousy of the Colonel and obduracy towards his wife Emily (he banishes her from his house, hires a detective to spy on her, arranges to kidnap their child and flees abroad with him). And then, there is Jemima Stanbury, the old maiden aunt with a fortune that many people covet, albeit, contrary to her fellow harridan Miss Crawley in Thackeray's tale, who picks a favourite among her relatives too, demanding absolute submission in all matters according to her whims for the sake of her money... contrary to her, I say, the other Stanburys do not grovel at Miss Jemima's feet in order to find their names written on her will. And when her astute endeavours to marry her niece Dorothy to some clergyman fail (a clergyman already engaged to a family of two daughters of the neighbourhood) and Dorothy falls instead for Brooke Burgess, Miss Jemima's new chosen heir, who stands his ground against Miss Jemima's threats to disinherit him should he stick to his purpose in regard to Dorothy, she ends up, after much quarrelling, solitude and illness, accepting the match and forgiving the affronts.

Indeed, Trollope here shows that you just can't put a price on love, which lesson is given also by Nora Rowley to her prig parents and sister by preferring Hugh Stanbury, a poor, earnest journalist (Hugh was his aunt's original favourite until he abandoned the bar and took to reporting for a radical paper), over Charles Glascock, a peer of the kingdom.

As to the work as a whole, I feel it more focused and well-rounded than "The Eustace Diamonds" (Trollope's version of his friend Collins's "The Moonstone" if you may), whose protagonist Lizzy Greystock, furthermore, seems to have been cast in a Becky-Sharpian mould. Then, if you condone me a quick, last digression to crown my argument, approaching the end of "Can You Forgive Her?", Glencora Palliser catches a glimpse of the scampish Burgo at some casino in the continent - another parallel to the closing of Thackeray's magnus opus, when Amelia's brother chances on Becky, now among a gypsy caravan, in the same setting. And yet, in "He Knew He Was Right" Trollope did manage to merge the roots from which it stemmed while ministering his own style freely to make it flourish.
3 people found this helpful
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B. Allen
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb study of madness and manners - and generational change
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2018
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This novel was quite an excellent study of madness, manners, and generational change. While the story's structure and style reminded me of Latin American telenovelas (anachronistically, of course), even the relatively light subplots - who will she marry, will her family approve - ably addressed deep themes of women's autonomy and generational gaps. The main plot - the madness of Louis Trevelyan, and his rejection and persecution of his wife, Emily - takes on the same theme. But while the subplots - Nora, Dorothy, Caroline, and their supporting casts - resolve the issues of women's rights and men's expectations of women's obedience relatively peacefully, with the key men finding ways to compromise with their women's wants and needs, Trevelyan's plot takes the conservative reaction to the extreme, with tragic results. Like Othello, Trevelyan suffers from jealousy that is mistaken and all-consuming - and Trollope both implicitly and explicitly cites Othello in the book. Trevelyan's jealousy can be read as mental illness - and Trollope addresses it as such explicitly - but also as the tragedy of the reactionary individual who can't reconcile him/herself with societal changes, and corresponding loss of status (here, of men ceding ground and authority in marriage and society to increasingly autonomous young women, and suffering - and causing others to suffer - when they can't adjust). Whether Trollope intended this second interpretation or not, I can't tell, but I certainly read it as such.

This is the first Trollope novel I've read, and I'm altogether impressed: his prose style is easy and conversational. He writes with good humor, and periodically addresses the reader directly to explain or poke a little fun at his characters or situations. He's slightly satirical, but without being dismissive of or mean to his characters. All the main characters are fully fleshed-out, flawed three-dimensional beings, and even when their reactions or decisions annoyed me Trollope made sure I understood what they were thinking and why - and I found myself empathizing with them, even when I disagreed or disapproved. Achieving this outcome is no small feat, as is making a 930-page Victorian domestic novel without end-of-chapter cliffhangers or crazy plot twists, consistently gripping. But Trollope succeeds at both. I highly recommend He Knew He Was Right, even to those who are unsure they'd enjoy Trollope.
6 people found this helpful
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Lulu
1.0 out of 5 stars Very long, drawn out story
Reviewed in the United States on December 6, 2020
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I was tempted to quit reading several times, but I rarely do that in hopes that a book will hold more interest as the story develops. That never happened for me with this book.
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Top reviews from other countries

Client d'Amazon
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Reviewed in Germany on June 23, 2018
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'He Knew He Was Right' was a disappointment. It contains 930 pages and for me it was just too much. Trollope does not only tell the story of Trevelyan, the madman who falsely accuses his wife of adultery, but also of the background characters, which made this novel unnecessarily long and tedious since Trollope used the same concepts as in his previous novels, e.g. young couples who are prevented from marrying each other due to their belonging to different classes. Always the same stories. I really enjoyed a couple of his Barsetshire-series but this novel was a waste of my time. Although Trollope depicts his characters fantastically and narrates with sincerity and deep psychological insight, I do not recommend this novel to Trollope fans. Spare your time and do not buy it.
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Canadian Reviewer
5.0 out of 5 stars If you have seen any DVD version of this but ...
Reviewed in Canada on July 29, 2014
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If you have seen any DVD version of this but never read the book, the book is a must read!
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"Poppy"
5.0 out of 5 stars And they tell us Victorians didn't care about women being abused by their husbands!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 10, 2014
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Well written, good story, lots of characters to follow & to love & hate, it's not all depressing stuff, there is a fair bit of comedy too. This is the second time I've read it, the first was about 10 years ago. I had spent the last 7 going into bookshops trying to get hold of a copy but they seem to have someting against Trollope. I got a Kindle for Christmas and my problem was solved in a couple of minutes, delivery obviously wasn't an issue.
I would DEFINITELY pay more for a text because of the added value:
1) It goes back to the Text Trollope approved of, not some biased turn of the century's editors fiddled with version.
2) the notes in the back explain words that now have a different meaning. E.g. (It might be from another Trollope book I have read, but it is typical of notes in Trollope books) -Spud- this was a potato as far as I knew, but a character was prodding the ground with it, who knew the Victorian land owner used to have a pointy ended stick to test soil condition with that ia also called a spud. The paragraph would have been impossible to understand without the help of the notes.
3) the introduction is helpful for all sorts of reasons, for example explaining context, reminding you the date divorce (although a limited form maybe) became possible without being super rich, and lot's of other things.
I will re-read it in another few years, my life perspective throws up new aspects I missed before and will again I'm sure.
Well worth the extra cost.
6 people found this helpful
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Didier
4.0 out of 5 stars A descent into madness
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2008
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Having read (and greatly enjoyed) all Barsetshire- and Palliser-novels, I turned to 'He knew he was right' with high hopes, and I am glad to say I was not disappointed. Trollope has written 'lighter', more optimistic novels but he demonstrates here that he can handle darker themes just as well.

The main plot concerns the marriage between Louis Trevelyan and Emily Rowley. He is a wealthy gentleman without near relatives, she is the eldest daugther of Sir Marmaduke Rowley, the (rather impoverished) governor of the Mandarin Islands. When Louis and Emily marry everything seems perfect bliss but before long troubles begin. Emily strikes up a friendship with a certain Colonel Osborne and, although he is a friend of her father and many years her senior, Louis objects and makes increasing demands upon Emily to stop seeing Colonel Osborne. But Emily argues that, since Colonel Osborne is to her nothing more than a friend, she fails to see why she should stop seeing him (although - to be fair - Colonel Osborne from his side rather enjoys the attentions of so young a lady).

One thing leads to another and Louis takes ever more desperate steps, slowly but surely isolating him from all his friends and relatives. In a way he knows he is wrong in suspecting Emily, but at the same time he is unable to make amends. Once he has set his course he cannot turn back.

As this marriage is breaking up, several others are on the make: Emily's sister Nora rejects the proposal of Mr. Glascock (the future Lord Peterborough, and as such extremely wealthy) because she has fallen in love with the virtually penniless Hugh Stanbury, while Stanbury's sister Dorothy is courted by the Reverend Gibson who in fact has a previous attachment to another girl...

In a word, there's plenty of love-trouble in the novel, and although for most characters everything works out for the best in the end (it usually does in a Trollope-novel, doesn't it?) it definitely does not for Louis and Emily. I found their relationship a wonderful study in the importance (and difficulty) of communication between man and wife, and Louis Trevelyan himself is impressively depicted (in all his misery, for sure).

As I said at the beginning, not a very uplifting novel, but a very good one nonetheless!
14 people found this helpful
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Belinda
5.0 out of 5 stars absorbing, thought provoking and very funny!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2015
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I loved this book! Trollope crafts his characters so well. I found myself getting frustrated and wanted to give some of them a good shake until I reminded myself it was just a novel. As fresh and funny now as when it was first written.
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