Anthony Trollope was born in London in 1815 and died in 1882. His father was a barrister who went bankrupt and his family was maintained by his mother, Frances, who was a well-known writer. Establishing himself with a career in the Post Office, Trollope's first novel was published in 1847. he went on to write over forty novels and enjoyed considerable acclaim during his lifetime. He is best known for The Barchester Chronicles and the brilliant Palliser novels. David Skilton is Professor of English at Cardiff University. His books included Anthony Trollope and His Contemporaries and The Early and Mid-Victorian Novel. He has also edited Wilkie Collins's The Law and the Lady, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbevilles and Trollope's The Prime Minister for the Penguin Classics. Peter Miles lectures at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He is author of "Wuthering Heights": The Critics Debate and co-author of Cinema, Literature and Society: Elite and Mass Culture in Interwar Britain.