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As Downton Abbey's creator adapts a classic tale of snobbery with violence... will we all fall in love with a Trollope?

Published: 17:37 EST, 26 April 2015 | Updated: 06:00 EST, 27 April 2015

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Tipped to be a heroine: Lily James as Lady Rose in Downton Abbey

News that Julian Fellowes is to adapt Anthony Trollope’s novel Dr Thorne as a three-part TV series should thrill romantics, readers of the Victorian novelist and lovers of British drama alike.

Two hundred years after Trollope’s birth, he is suddenly fashionable again, and the Downton Abbey creator is the perfect person to do him justice.

Trollope’s glorious mix of lovable and loathsome characters, allied to Oscar-winning Fellowes’s expert treatment of class, psycho-drama and gripping Sunday night TV, should be a winning team.

Trollope’s plain, unaffected prose means that he is not the greatest stylist of all time, but he is without doubt one of the greatest story-tellers; and Dr Thorne shows why.

The 1858 novel, which grips you from the beginning with a seduction, a murder and a secret birth, tells the tale of illegitimate and penniless Mary, who is desperately in love with Frank Gresham, heir to an impoverished aristocratic family.

Having been adopted and raised by kindly Dr Thorne, Mary knows her love is returned — but Frank’s snobbish mother, Lady Arabella de Courcy, is set against a match.

Frank is expected to save his family’s fortune by marrying someone high born and wealthy, such as heiress Martha Dunstable.

Since he loves Mary and his family, which is he to put first?

What makes Trollope so adored is that you fall in love with his creations. They make you laugh, cry, rage and cheer.

And perhaps the suffering and modesty of Mary Thorne evokes the loudest cheers from the reader. Lily James, who played Lady Rose in Downton and was cast as Cinderella in Kenneth Branagh’s new film, is the early favourite to take on the role.

On the screen: Julian Fellowes (left) is to adapt Dr Thorne by Anthony Trollope (right) as a three-part TV series

Mary is so delightful that you see why everyone but grouchy old Lady Arabella adores her. Her affection, humility and commitment to those she loves — even if they cause her misery — make her a heroine.

‘Above all else, never think you are not good enough,’ is Trollope’s mantra, and it’s this belief in the ability of the honest, brave and kind to overcome disadvantage that resonates still.

Trollope’s men often begin as awkward adolescents with little polish or self-knowledge (like the author himself), but later display honour and sensitivity.

If Aidan Turner’s Poldark has won the nation’s female hearts with his indifference to class (not to mention his rippling muscles), then Trollope’s Frank Gresham, with his kindness, courage and charm, is closer to what we really look for in a hero.

Like all the best Victorian novelists, Trollope’s romances throb with suppressed passion, which makes them more appealing than anything more explicit.

In Dr Thorne, with all your heart you want Mary and Frank to defy their ghastly relatives and marry. Trollope knew that we all live divided between the real world of money, jobs, homes and status — and the inner world of hopes, fantasies and prejudices.

Right choice: Two hundred years after Trollope’s birth, he is suddenly fashionable again, and the creator of Downton Abbey (pictured) is the perfect person to do him justice

‘A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules,’ he wrote, and Trollope’s life bore this out.

Popular: Aidan Turner’s Poldark (above) has won the nation’s female hearts with his indifference to class

His success came about through a triumph of self-discipline, and many of his novels were written at high speed while travelling around the country by train as he worked for the Post Office.

Born in 1815, the young Anthony had a wretched upbringing as a poor student at Harrow and Winchester College, burdened with a bankrupt father, his mother’s notoriety as a waspish novelist and a surname that made him the object of mockery.

Awkward, plain and impoverished, he never went to university, instead going to work as a junior clerk in the Post Office.

Here he rose (and, indeed, invented the postbox), but by the time he became a novelist he had experienced enough social and romantic humiliations, disappointments and snubs to furnish him with hundreds of fabulous characters.

With Trollope’s interlocking novels — which carry on the stories of a large cast of characters — and the ability to understand so much about what makes us tick, it’s no surprise that Julian Fellowes is a huge fan.

In Fellowes’s dramas, too, rich and poor characters are all human beings who love, loathe and must live alongside each other.

Trollope presents his characters — regardless of class or fortune — as deserving of compassion rather than censure.

Mary Thorne’s rival in love would, in most hands, have been turned into an unattractive character, but Trollope makes rich Martha Dunstable a generous hearted eccentric who shrewdly offers Frank her friendship rather than her hand in marriage.

Dr Thorne himself is the epitome of generosity — TV insiders have tipped Hugh Bonneville, who plays Downton’s Lord Grantham, to play him.

Epitome of generosity: Dr Thorne could be played by Hugh Bonneville (pictured), Downton’s Lord Grantham

Few of Trollope’s villains are truly wicked. Lady Arabella will give Downton’s Maggie Smith a run for her money as the snob we love to loathe: a dream part for Anna Chancellor (Duckface in Four Wedding And A Funeral) or Kristin Scott Thomas.

Even if Dr Thorne’s setting may appear remote from our lives today, the response to love, passion, money and ambition remains pretty much the same as 200 years ago

Lady Arabella is bound to have us writhing on the sofa. Yet she behaves like this because she adores her son and knows how much her daughters need a fortune in order not to sink. How you judge her will change depending on whether you are a parent or a child.

Trollope’s main characters live in, or near to, genteel poverty of a kind many viewers will relate to. Who they love and choose to marry is a question of life-changing importance, affecting their potential for happiness.

Even if Dr Thorne’s setting may appear remote from our lives today, the response to love, passion, money and ambition remains pretty much the same as 200 years ago.

Above all, Trollope’s novel asks a contemporary question: how principled can I afford to be?

It is a conundrum that will undoubtedly have us glued to the screen as we see our emotional foibles writ large in the characters that sprang from Trollope’s pen.