Walpole , though he was devoted to the works of Trollope , and published a study of him , thought that there was no real comparison between the two of them : " I am far too twisted and fantastic a novelist ever to succeed in catching Trollope 's marvellous normality . " Priestley was less impressed by the supposed Trollopian side of Walpole 's work , finding some of it formulaic . He was more taken with a darker , Dostoyevskian , side that he found in the writing : " suddenly it will transform the pleasant easy scene he is giving us into transparency behind which are bright stars and red hellfire ... No matter how jolly and zestful he may appear to be , the fact remain that he possess an unusually sharp sense of evil . "