Named source · 1857

Barchester Towers Quotes by Anthony Trollope: Context & Meanings

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There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

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“There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”

Anthony Trollope

Meaning & context

Madeline Stanhope turns the convention of romantic closure into a cynical joke, separating the tidy endings of novels from the complications of lived relationships.

Source details

Barchester Towers, Chapter XXVII, ‘A Love Scene,’ Project Gutenberg #2432. Madeline Stanhope tells Mr Slope that there is no happiness in love except at the end of an English novel after a comic catalogue of tragic lovers. The sentence is witty fictional dialogue inside Trollope's satire, not a factual rule about love or happiness.

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