In late 1859, Trollope learned of preparations for the release of the "Cornhill Magazine", to be published by George Murray Smith and edited by William Makepeace Thackeray. He wrote to the latter, offering to provide short stories for the new magazine. Thackeray and Smith both responded: the former urging Trollope to contribute, the latter offering £1,000 for a novel, provided that a substantial part of it could be available to the printer within six weeks. Trollope offered Smith "Castle Richmond", which he was then writing; but Smith declined to accept an Irish story, and suggested a novel dealing with English clerical life as had "Barchester Towers". Trollope then devised the plot of "Framley Parsonage", setting it near Barchester so that he could make use of characters from the Barsetshire novels.