Returning Home

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Summary

Returning Home is a short story by the Victorian English novelist Anthony Trollope, first collected in his 1864 volume Tales of All Countries, published by Chapman and Hall, and now in the public domain, with the full text available through projects such as Project Gutenberg. The story centers on Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, an English couple long resident in San José, Costa Rica. After years abroad, a powerful homesickness drives them to set out for England by way of the Sarapiquí River route. In the rainy season this route is muddy and difficult, the river swollen, and the journey is fraught with hardship and danger from the start. The wife is filled with anticipation of reunion with her family, while the husband must manage the luggage and cope with the endless troubles along the way. Yet during a river crossing an accident occurs, and the wife drowns; the dream of returning home is shattered. Mr. Arkwright, in great grief and self-reproach, sees to her burial and continues the journey alone. With restrained and meticulous prose, Trollope explores the obsession and the cost behind the simple wish to go home, the psychological distance between a distant land and one's native country, and how fate can shatter human plans in an instant. Though brief, it compresses the weariness of travel, the alien sights of colonial life, and the sudden pain of bereavement into a reading experience that lingers long in the memory.

Editor's review

特罗洛普的名字在中国读者心中常与“巴塞特郡纪事”系列和议会小说联系在一起。其实他还写过大量短篇，《归家》就是其中一篇不可错过的佳作。它篇幅短小，故事线很清楚：一对思乡心切的英国夫妇从哥斯达黎加动身回国，却在热带雨林的归途中遭遇不测。特罗洛普很少刻意制造悬念，他关心的是事件落在人身上之后，人怎么反应、怎么承受。这篇小说正是如此：关于归乡的期盼，关于异乡生活的疲惫，关于失去至亲后那种说不出口的愧疚，都写得很平静，读完却很难放下。对初次接触维多利亚时代短篇小说的读者来说，《归家》几乎是最合适的文本：篇幅不长，语言清晰，故事完整，还能看到特罗洛普对“家”与“远方”这一主题比较少见、更带私人情感的写法。想比较系统地读特罗洛普的短篇，也可以去找中译本里的《归家》，它与《巴拿马之旅》《凯瑟琳·卡迈克尔》等篇同收一集，正好能把这组“异国故事”对照着看。

Who it's for

A good fit for

喜欢维多利亚时代英国文学、想从短篇入手的读者
对“异乡—归乡”主题和旅行文学感兴趣的读者
想了解特罗洛普短篇小说、而不只读他长篇的读者
英语学习者，想用篇幅较短的经典原文练读的读者

Not a good fit for

期待轻松明快、圆满结局故事的读者
偏好长篇史诗或复杂多线叙事的读者

Reading tips

可先读英文原文（公版可免费获取），篇幅短，一次读完更能体会结尾的冲击力。
读后不妨对照特罗洛普同集的《巴拿马之旅》，两篇都写热带旅途，主题和情绪可以互相参照。
留意叙述者对夫妇二人心理的细微描写，特罗洛普的力道往往藏在这些不事声张的句子里。

FAQ

《归家》是特罗洛普的长篇小说吗？

不是。它是一篇短篇小说，最初收入1864年出版的小说集《Tales of All Countries》（万国故事集），并非《巴塞特郡纪事》或议会系列中的长篇。

这本书有中文译本吗？

特罗洛普的部分中短篇曾以选集形式译成中文出版，《归家》是其中收录的篇目之一；目前尚无可靠的单一中文单行本信息，具体以实际出版物为准。

英文原版在哪里可以免费读到？

该作已进入公版领域，古登堡计划（Project Gutenberg）等网站提供免费电子文本，可直接在线阅读或下载。

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About the author

安东尼·特罗洛普 Author

Anthony Trollope is an important British novelist of the Victorian era, and Chinese readers chiefly know him through the Barsetshire Chronicles. This series includes Barchester Towers, The Warden, Doctor Thorne and The Last Chronicle of Barset, and revolves around daily life, church positions and personal disputes in a cathedral town, written in a gently satirical tone with finely drawn characters. Scarborough's Marriage and The Parson's Daughter and Other Stories, a selection of his short fiction, show his handling of marital themes and the short-story form beyond the long novel. Six of his works are included here, all classified as foreign literature. Public information is limited, and details of his life such as birth and death dates and nationality are unavailable, yet his realistic portraits of provincial society and unhurried narrative pace have won him a steady readership in the Chinese-speaking world.