Of all the needs a book has, the chief need is that it be readable.

Trollope’s remark reduces literary ambition to a practical first principle: whatever else a book attempts—moral instruction, stylistic innovation, philosophical depth—it fails at the most basic level if readers cannot or will not read it with ease. “Readable” here implies more than simple vocabulary; it points to clarity of narrative movement, intelligible sentences, and an inviting relation between author and audience. The line also reflects a professional novelist’s skepticism toward writing that prizes difficulty as a badge of seriousness. In Trollope’s view, accessibility is not the enemy of art but the condition that allows art to reach its public and do its work.