The 36th AGM Annual Lecture took place in the magnificent surroundings of The Library at the Reform Club on Thursday 19th October 2023.

The Reform Club features in several of Trollope’s political novels, notably Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux. We are delighted to be returning to the Reform Club for this year’s AGM & Annual Lecture to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Phineas Redux in 1873.

The Annual Lecture was given by Professor John Bowen on the subject of  “Phineas, Vincent and Frank: an illustrated lecture”. This is a story about three young men in London, in the late 1860s and early 1870s, all in their twenties, all talented and ambitious, two of whom will die young, and the third go to prison and fear for his life.  It is a story about what they saw in the London that surrounded them, and about different kinds of success, failure, and fame. An Englishman, an Irishman and a Dutchman who did not go into a bar, but nevertheless found their lives strangely tangled together. The Irishman is Phineas Finn, of course.

John Bowen is Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of York, a past President of the Dickens Fellowship, and a Fellow of the English Association. He has written widely on nineteenth-century fiction and is the editor of Trollope’s Phineas Redux and Barchester Towers for Oxford World’s Classics.

Phineas Redux was originally published in The Graphic, July 19, 1873 – Jan. 10, 1874 and in book format by Chapman and Hall, December 1873 in two volumes, with 24 original illustrations by Francis M. Holl.

We are most grateful to Professor Bowen for re-recording his lecture on Zoom after the event.

Illustration: “‘He has been murdered’, said Mr Low.” by Francis M Holl. Originally published in The Graphic, July 19, 1873 – Jan. 10, 1874. Published in two volumes, London, Chapman and Hall, December 1873

Illustrations

• View Francis Holl’s original illustrations for Phineas Redux.

Photos of the event

Click on the photo to visit our Flickr album.

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The recording of Professor Bowen’s talk is only available to members of the Trollope Society.

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