The stories of Brown, Jones, and Robinson are about three Englishmen who travel together. Their adventures were published in Punch, and were the production of Richard Doyle. They typify the middle-class English abroad; and hold up to ridicule their gaucherie and contracted notions, their vulgarity and extravagance, their conceit and snobbism.
The Struggle Brown Jones & Robinson
by Anthony Trollope
IN AUGUST 1857, Trollope commenced work on his twelfth novel, just after completing The Three Clerks. His intention, he wrote, was to make a 'hit at the present system of advertising'. He intended it as another part of his campaign against dishonesty in public life, but the novel was virtually abandoned two weeks later. Trollope didn't return to this untypical, unusual venture into the lower middle-class world of the retail trade until 1861, just after he had completed Orley Farm.
George Robinson, the youthful narrator of the story, retired butter dealer Mr Brown, and Mr Jones, set up a haberdashery in Bishopsgate street, called Magenta House: 'magenta from the roof to the window tops.' Despite a huge advertising campaign, for which George is responsible, a lack of capital leads the trio into shady dealings and then bankruptcy. George is in love with Maryanne Brown, the daughter of his partner, but Maryanne is also the object of another character's affections, William Brisket, a butcher from Aldersgate Street. Brisket will only marry Maryanne with her dowry of
