He Knew He Was Right Book

One of my favorite things about Anthony Trollope's novels is his talent for penetrating psychological portraits, and He Knew He Was Right is one of Trollope's best in this respect. Here, he examines Louis Trevelyan, a man who unjustly accuses his wife Emily of infidelity, and his descent from jealousy and rage into madness. Trollope himself disliked the novel, feeling that he'd failed in his effort to create sympathy for the troubled Trevelyan, yet I felt that he did succeed; the portrait of Trevelyan's disintegration, particularly in his relationship with his wife and their little son, was deeply moving.

In addition to the Trevelyan family, the novel is filled with sharply drawn characters, including some of Trollope's best women: the spinster Miss Stanbury, her sharp-tongued niece Priscilla, and Emily's sister Nora Rowley, who refuses to give up the man she loves in spite of the threat of poverty. There are a lot of characters and a lot of subplots, but Trollope manages to keep them all going without detracting from the story of the Trevelyans' failing marriage; in fact, for me the novel was more about the predicament of women in Victorian society than about the titular hero. Trollope does poke fun at feminists in the person of Wallachia Petrie, the American poetess, but he clearly understood and sympathized with women's plight in a society in which they were largely subject to the wishes of men.