Of Bigamy, Blackmail and Betrayal!

...A scorching new graphic novel by... celebrated Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope

-Works by novelist Anthony Trollope being recast as 'graphic' comic book
-First 'novel' is based on John Caldigate and will be renamed Dispossession
-Comic book will be published next year in time for bicentenary celebrations

Anthony Trollope is one of the most celebrated novelists in the English language, a towering icon of the Victorian era who is feted by critics and adored by readers to this day. But now one of his famously lengthy works is being recast in the unlikely form of a comic book, pared down to fewer than a hundred pages of cartoon strips.

The first Trollope ‘graphic novel’ is based on his relatively obscure work John Caldigate.

The first Anthony Trollope 'graphic novel' is based on his relatively obscure work John Caldigate, and has been re-named Dispossession

Published in 1879, it is a story of bigamy, blackmail and betrayal set during the Australian gold rush, a very different milieu from the political and ecclesiastical intrigue of the Palliser novels and The Barchester Chronicles for which Trollope is best known.

Under the new title of Dispossession, the comic book will be published next year in time for the bicentenary celebrations of Trollope’s birth.

Dispossession has the same characters and plot as the original novel but it tells the story in a way that will surprise the writer’s legion of fans.

Trollope is often to referred to as the Establishment’s favourite author, and his admirers include former Prime Minister Sir John Major, the Bishop of London Richard Chartres and Lord Fellowes, the Oscar-winning creator of Downton Abbey.

Anthony Trollope is one of the most celebrated novelists in the English language, a towering icon of the Victorian era who is feted by critics to this day

Whereas Trollope’s novel ran to more than 600 pages and included no illustrations, the graphic version has just 96 pages and 576 separate images. 

Much of the narrative is delivered in the form of speech bubbles.

It also includes 700 words of Wiradjuri, an Aboriginal language that does not feature in the original book.

John Caldigate is a Victorian ne’er-do-well who graduates from Cambridge with gambling debts and begins a new life in the Australian goldfields. 

On the voyage he meets feisty widow Euphemia Smith, and the pair set up home in Australia.

Caldigate returns to England alone after making his fortune and marries his childhood sweetheart, Hester Bolton. 

But his past comes back to haunt him when Euphemia turns up and accuses him of bigamy.

Dr Simon Grennan, the artist and academic who has created the comic book, said he had chosen John Caldigate precisely because it wasn’t as well known as Trollope’s other novels.

He said: ‘That opens up the opportunities for adaptation.’

His version includes Aboriginal and convict characters only hinted at by Trollope.

Grennan, a research fellow at the University of Chester, said: ‘Trollope set this story in New South Wales but did not make more of the miners, convicts and Aboriginals who lived there. 

'I didn’t want that implausibility in Dispossession.’ 

Lord Fellowes welcomed the new version, which he hoped would introduce new readers to the author, saying: ‘Any road that leads to Trollope is worth taking.' 

Source: dailymail.co.uk