Ralph the Heir
Encyclopedia
Ralph the Heir is a novel by Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...

, originally published in 1871. Although Trollope described it as "one of the worst novels I have written",
it was well received by contemporary critics.
More recently, readers have found it noteworthy for its account of a corrupt Parliamentary election,
an account based closely on Trollope's own experience as a candidate.

Plot summary

The title character is Ralph Newton, the nephew of Squire Gregory Newton of Newton Priory. The Squire has never married; he has an illegitimate
Legitimacy (law)
At common law, legitimacy is the status of a child who is born to parents who are legally married to one another; and of a child who is born shortly after the parents' divorce. In canon and in civil law, the offspring of putative marriages have been considered legitimate children...

 son, also named Ralph Newton, whom he loves dearly. However, the estate is entailed
Fee tail
At common law, fee tail or entail is an estate of inheritance in real property which cannot be sold, devised by will, or otherwise alienated by the owner, but which passes by operation of law to the owner's heirs upon his death...

, and after his death will go to his nephew Ralph; he cannot leave it to his natural son.

Ralph the heir is a spendthrift, and has run himself deep into debt. There are two ways in which he can extricate himself: by raising money on his future interest in the Newton estate, or by marrying Polly Neefit, the daughter of a wealthy breeches-maker who is one of his major creditors. Neither choice is a good one for him: the first might lead to the estate's being seized by his creditors upon the old squire's death; the second would mean allying himself to a family of a much lower social class, thus putting his own social standing at risk.

The Squire, anxious to obtain full possession of the estate so that he can pass it to his son, offers to buy the heir's reversion
Reversion (law)
A reversion is a type of "remainder" interest created when incomplete ownership in property is alienated subject to a condition subsequent. Upon the fulfillment of the condition subsequent, the incomplete possessory rights cease to exist and exclusive ownership returns to the holder of the...

. Ralph vacillates, hesitatingly proposes to and is rejected twice by Polly Neefit, and eventually accepts his uncle's offer. However, before the transaction can be completed, the Squire is killed in a hunting
Fox hunting
Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase, and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds, and a group of followers led by a master of foxhounds, who follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.Fox hunting originated in its current...

 accident and his nephew comes into full possession of the property and its large income.

Now safe from his creditors, the new Squire is nevertheless harassed by Polly Neefit's father, who threatens him with legal action and embarrassing publicity if he does not continue seeking his daughter's hand. The matter is eventually resolved by Polly, who accepts the oft-repeated proposals of Ontario Moggs, son of a prosperous bootmaker, and induces her father to consent to the marriage despite his preference for the Squire. In the meantime, Ralph the Squire has proposed to and been rejected by Mary Bonner, the beautiful niece and ward of Sir Thomas Bertram; soon after this, she accepts an offer of marriage from the illegitimate Ralph.

The novel also describes a Parliamentary election in the fictional borough
Parliamentary borough
Parliamentary boroughs are a type of administrative division, usually covering urban areas, that are entitled to representation in a Parliament...

 of Percycross, in which Sir Thomas, a Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

, and Moggs, a Radical
Radicals (UK)
The Radicals were a parliamentary political grouping in the United Kingdom in the early to mid 19th century, who drew on earlier ideas of radicalism and helped to transform the Whigs into the Liberal Party.-Background:...

, are two of the four candidates for the two available seats. Both are eager that the election be conducted fairly and honestly. The other two candidates, one a Conservative and one a Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

, are the incumbents; they see nothing wrong with the buying and selling of votes that has been traditional at Percycross. Sir Thomas and his fellow Conservative win the election, but it is annulled on petition, and the borough is disfranchised by Parliament because of its pervasive corruption.

The Beverley campaign

Trollope had long dreamt of taking a seat in the House of Commons.
As a civil servant, however, he was ineligible for such a position. His resignation from the Post Office in 1867
removed this disability, and he almost immediately began seeking a seat for which he might run.
In 1868, he agreed to stand as a Liberal candidate in the borough of Beverley
Beverley (UK Parliament constituency)
Beverley has been the name of a parliamentary constituency in the East Riding of Yorkshire for three separate periods. From medieval times until 1869, it was a parliamentary borough, consisting solely of the market town of Beverley, which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons...

, in the East Riding of Yorkshire
East Riding of Yorkshire
The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Yorkshire, is a local government district with unitary authority status, and a ceremonial county of England. For ceremonial purposes the county also includes the city of Kingston upon Hull, which is a separate unitary authority...

.

Party leaders apparently took advantage of Trollope's eagerness to run and willingness to spend money on a campaign.
Beverley had a long history of vote-buying and of intimidation by employers and others. Every election since 1857 had been followed by a petition alleging corruption, and it was estimated that 300 of the 1100 voters in 1868 would sell their votes.
The task of a Liberal candidate was not to win the election, but to give the Conservative candidates an opportunity to display overt corruption, which could then be used to disqualify them.

Trollope described his period of campaigning in Beverley as "the most wretched fortnight of my manhood".
He spent a total of £400 on his campaign.
The election was held 17 November 1868; the novelist finished last of four candidates, with the victory going to the two Conservatives.
A petition was filed, and a Royal Commission
Royal Commission
In Commonwealth realms and other monarchies a Royal Commission is a major ad-hoc formal public inquiry into a defined issue. They have been held in various countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia...

 investigated the circumstances of the election; its findings of extensive and widespread corruption drew nationwide attention, and led to the disfranchisement of the borough in 1870.

Trollope wrote Ralph the Heir between 4 April and 7 August 1869,
less than a year after the Beverley campaign. Although there are differences of detail between the fictional election at Percycross and the historical one at Beverley, the one was clearly based on the other. In his 1883 autobiography, Trollope wrote: "Percycross and Beverley were, of course, one and the same place."

Publication history

Ralph the Heir was initially published as a supplement to St. Paul's Magazine in monthly numbers from January 1870 to July 1871. In April 1871, it was published in three volumes by Hurst and Blackett
Hurst and Blackett
Hurst and Blackett is a publisher established in 1812. They were located on Great Marlborough Street, and later at Paternoster House, Paternoster Row, London. They have had offices in New York and Melbourne.- External links :* *...

.
Also in 1871, a one-volume edition was published by Strahan and Co.;
an English-language edition was released by Tauchnitz
Tauchnitz
Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers.Karl Christoph Traugott Tauchnitz , born at Grossbardau near Grimma, Saxony, established a printing business in Leipzig in 1796 and a publishing house in 1798...

 of Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

; an American edition was issued by Harper
Harper (publisher)
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...

; and a Russian translation, Naslednik Ralph, was published in St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. In 1872, the novel was published in Danish as Arvingden Ralph; in 1874, a Swedish translation, Ralph, was released in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...



More recently, editions of the novel have been released by Dover
Dover Publications
Dover Publications is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward Cirker and his wife, Blanche. It publishes primarily reissues, books no longer published by their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books in the public domain. The original published editions may be...

 in 1978, by Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

 in 1990, and by the Trollope Society in 1996.

Trollope received a total of £2500 for the novel: the same amount that he had received for The Vicar of Bullhampton
The Vicar of Bullhampton
The Vicar of Bullhampton is an 1870 novel by Anthony Trollope. It is made up of three intertwining subplots: the courtship of a young woman by two suitors; a feud between the titular Broad Church vicar and a Low Church nobleman, abetted by a Methodist minister; and the vicar's attempt to...

the previous year, and that he received for The Eustace Diamonds
The Eustace Diamonds
The Eustace Diamonds is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published in 1871 as a serial in the Fortnightly Review. It is the third of the "Palliser" series of novels.-Plot summary:...

two years later.

Adaptations

Charles Reade
Charles Reade
Charles Reade was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for The Cloister and the Hearth.-Life:Charles Reade was born at Ipsden, Oxfordshire to John Reade and Anne Marie Scott-Waring; William Winwood Reade the influential historian , was his nephew. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford,...

adapted the plot of Ralph the Heir for the stage under the name Shilly-Shally. The play ran for a month in 1872 at the Gaiety Theatre in London, with Trollope and Reade listed as the authors.
Trollope, who at that time was travelling in Australia, complained that his name and his plot had been used without his knowledge or consent; however, copyright law at the time gave an author no recourse in such a case.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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