Sentence No. 42 · 8 May 2026
And here perhaps it may be allowed to the novelist to explain his views on a very important point in the art of telling tales.
Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers
Anthony Trollope — Barchester Towers (1857) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Notice that "And here, perhaps" opens the sentence — the adverb "here" anchors the clause to this exact narrative moment, while "perhaps" softens the authorial intrusion. Whenever you see both a location word and a hedging adverb early, the main subject ("the novelist") follows close behind.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 7 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. Trollope pauses his story to reflect directly on the nature of fiction and the reader's expectations. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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