" Dramatists, when they write their plays, have a delightful privilege of prefixing a list of their personages; — and the dramatists of old used to tell us who was in love with whom, and what were the blood relationships of all the persons. In such a narrative as this, any proceeding of that kind would be unusual, — and therefore the poor narrator has been driven to expend his first four chapters in the mere task of introducing his characters. He regrets the length of these introductions, and will now begin at once the action of his story "

― Anthony Trollope , Complete Works of Anthony Trollope