Nina Balatka | Page 2

have
been unacceptable to Victorian British readers. Blatant anti-semitism
was prevalent--perhaps ubiquitous--among the upper classes.
Let us consider the origins of this anti-semitism. Jews were first
allowed into England by William the Conqueror. For a while they
prospered, largely through money-lending, an occupation to which they
were restricted. In the 13th century a series of increasingly oppressive
laws and taxes reduced the Jewish community to poverty, and the Jews
were expelled from England in 1290. They were not allowed to return
until 1656, when Oliver Cromwell authorized their entry over the
objections of British merchants. Legal protection for the Jews increased
gradually; even the "Act for the More Effectual Suppressing of
Blasphemy and Profaneness" (1698) recognized the practice of Judaism
as legal, but there were probably only a few hundred Jews in the entire
country. The British Jewish community grew gradually, and efforts to
emancipate the Jews were included in various "Reform Acts" in the
first half of the 19th century, although many failed to become law.
Gradually Jews were admitted to the bar and other professions. Full
citizenship and rights, including the right to sit in Parliament, were
granted in 1858--only seven years before Trollope began writing Nina
Balatka. By this time wealthy Jewish families were growing in number.
This upward mobility and increasing economic and political power no
doubt made the British upper classes envious and resentful, fuelling
anti-semitism.
Trollope chose to have Nina published anonymously in _Blackwood's
Magazine_ for reasons which he described in his autobiography:
From the commencement of my success as a writer . . . I had always
felt an injustice in literary affairs which had never afflicted me or even
suggested itself to me while I was unsuccessful. It seemed to me that a
name once earned carried with it too much favour . . . The injustice

which struck me did not consist in that which was withheld from me,
but in that which was given to me. I felt that aspirants coming up below
me might do work as good as mine, and probably much better work,
and yet fail to have it appreciated. In order to test this, I determined to
be such an aspirant myself, and to begin a course of novels
anonymously, in order that I might see whether I could succeed in
obtaining a second identity,--whether as I had made one mark by such
literary ability as I possessed, I might succeed in doing so again. [1]
Why did Trollope start his "new" career with a novel whose central
theme was a subject of distaste at best--more likely revulsion--to the
vast majority of the reading public? Perhaps the nature of the novel
itself led him to consider publishing it anonymously, although we know
he was not averse to controversial subjects. In his first book, _The
Macdermots of Ballycloran_, which he thought had the best plot of all
his novels, the principal female character is seduced by a scoundrel and
dies giving birth to an illegitimate child.
Certainly Nina was well-suited for the experiment because of it's
different setting and subject matter. Perhaps further to disguise his
authorship, Trollope wrote Nina in a style of prose that reads almost
like a translation from a foreign language.
The experiment did not last long enough to test Trollope's hypothesis.
Mr. Hutton, critic for the Spectator, recognized Trollope as the author
and so stated in his review. Trollope did not deny the accusation.
One cannot discuss Nina Balatka without addressing the question, was
Trollope himself anti-semitic? A careful reading of his works does not
provide a clear answer. Jews appear in some of his books and are
referred to in others, often as disreputable characters or money-lenders.
They are seldom mentioned by his Christian characters with respect,
probably realistically reflecting the sentiments of the classes he wrote
about. Some of his greatest villains in his later novels--Melmotte in
_The Way We Live Now (1875) and Lopez in The Prime Minister_
(1876)--are rumored to be Jewish, but Trollope never unequivocally
identifies them as Jewish. Perhaps his Christian characters expect them
to be Jewish because they are foreigners and villains.

However, if one ignores the dialogue of his characters, even the
descriptive and editorial comments by Trollope himself at first seem
anti-semitic. He consistently uses "Jew" as a pejorative adjective
instead of "Jewish." His descriptions of the appearance of Jewish
characters are usually unflattering and stereotypical. Even Anton
Trendellsohn, the hero of Nina Balatka, is described as follows:
To those who know the outward types of his race there could be no
doubt that Anton Trendellsohn was a very Jew among Jews. He was
certainly a handsome man, not now very young, having reached some
year certainly in advance of thirty, and his face was full of intellect. He
was slightly made, below the middle