New Men in Trollope's Novels

<p><em>New Men in Trollope's Novels</em> challenges the popular construction of Victorian men as patriarchal despots and suggests that hands-on fatherhood may have been a nineteenth-century norm. Beginning with an evaluation of the evidence for cultural determinations of masculinity during Trollope's times the author sets the stage with a discussion of the religious philosophical and educational influences that informed the evolution of Trollope's personal views of masculinity as he grew from boyhood into later manhood. Her treatment of his novels drawing on a wide selection from across the oevre shows that sensitive examination of Trollope's texts discovers him advancing a startlingly modern model of manhood under a veneer of conformity. Trollope's independent views on child-rearing education courtship marriage parenthood and gay men are also discussed within the context of Victorian culture in this witty original and immensely knowledgeable study of Victorian masculinity.</p>