Anthony Trollope: The Prime Minister (1875-6)

Edition: Oxford, 1983
Review number: 994

The fifth Palliser novel is one of Trollope's longer, and, as is customary in the series, combines its political plotlines with a romantic subplot, the political plot relating to the other parts of the series and the romantic one specific to this novel. The latter is more interesting than the time spent by Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, as Prime Minister, even if it is that which provides the novel's title. The most memorable aspect of the Palliser Ministry is that its leader is reluctant and does not enjoy his position at all.

In the other plot, Trollope introduces a scoundrel rather like Melmotte in The Way We Live Now. Ferdinand Lopez is a penniless adventurer who uses other people's money in dangerous speculation; even worse, to some of the characters, is that he is foreign and Jewish despite a façade of the English gentleman. (Trollope has occasionally been accused of anti-Semitism because of characters like Lopez, but he was interested in the reactions of society to Jews rather than in attacking them.) He manages to marry an heiress, the innocent Emily Wharton, against the wishes of her family, but eventually his schemes overreach themselves when he runs as a candidate for Parliament. What is interesting about his character is that as an outsider he doesn't understand conventions of society, but that he continually attributes his failures to the enmity and bad faith of others, and thus the results of his actions bring out the worst in him.

The structure of the novel is dominated by Lopez, but in the end the conventional happy outworking of the Lopez/Wharton plot is subdued by the fall of the Palliser Ministry. This makes it one of Trollope's better novels, but the many references to the earlier members of the Palliser series mean that it shouldn't be read on its own.

Anthony Trollope: Phineas Redux (1873)

Edition: Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library; taken from the Oxford Text Archive version, 1994
Review number: 900

The fourth Palliser novel, as its title says, is about Phineas Finn's return to the political scene. Standing once again for parliament takes up the first part of the story, along with the renewal of his acquaintance with the women who played an important part in his early career before his marriage, Lady Laura Kennedy, Madame Goestler and Glencora Palliser, now the Duchess of Omnium.

The second half of the novel rather overshadows this, however. Here, Phineas is accused of the murder of a political rival on circumstantial evidence; it takes the efforts of the three women to unearth the evidence which proves him innocent at the last minute of his sensational trial.

Phineas Redux is clearly from the middle of a series; it would be inconceivable as a stand-alone novel. Its purpose is to contain the further adventures of characters well known to its readers. Its main interest is the depiction of Phineas' mental state while he is in prison awaiting his trial. Phineas Redux does not particularly grab the attention; it is one of Trollope's poorer novels.

Anthony Trollope: The Eustace Diamonds (1873)

Edition: Oxford Text Archive, 1993
Review number: 566

The third novel in the Palliser series is probably the least political of all of them. It shares characters and the background of London society with the rest of them, but little else.

The novel is dominated by the amoral Lizzie Eustace, whom Trollope keeps on insisting is the heroine. The gentle, submissive and not very bright Lucy Morris fits the stereotypical part of nineteenth century novel heroine better, but Trollope gives her a much more subordinate role. Lizzie is effectively an adventuress, who has made a rich marriage. When her husband dies, she keeps the famous Eustace family diamonds, inventing a story that he had given these heirlooms to her.

The family rather naturally attempts to regain the jewels, but it looks as though Lizzie will manage to keep hold of them, until they are stolen. By this point, she has become really tired of the diamonds; her original lie was only prompted by a kind of instinctive acquisitiveness, but it has got her into all kinds of unwelcome difficulties.

Her character is the main unconventionality in the novel, which is predominantly not particularly unusual. Trollope is always entertaining, but not as challenging as the best of his contemporaries.

Anthony Trollope: Phineas Finn (1869)

Edition: Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
Review number: 397

Phineas Finn is one of Trollope's most enjoyable novels. It is here that the so called Palliser series of political novels really gets under way, Can You Forgive Her? being more of a prologue introducing some of the characters. (The overlap between the two novels is actually quite small, and it is not until later that characters from them really begin to interact.)

Finn is a young Irish barrister tempted from his legal career by the offer of a seat in Parliament. Without an income, this was a perilous course, for MPs were not paid at this time; only in office would a politician receive public money. Having accepted, he becomes involved in the reforms which took place in British politics in the mid nineteenth century, and is torn between his desire to support the abolition of abuses and the fact that this would result in his own seat disappearing. The tumultuous politics are mirrored in a confused private life, as Finn becomes involved with one woman after another.

Trollope's sentimentality and conventional morality are lesser obstacles in Phineas Finn than they are in some of his other novels - he even goes so far as to condone separation between married partners on grounds of incompatibility, contrary to the law of the time. The main characters are engaging and the political background fascinating.

Anthony Trollope: Can You Forgive Her? (1864)

Edition: Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
Review number: 277

The first of Trollope's series of Palliser novels which attempt to do for the political scene of the early Victorian period what his Barset novels did for the ecclesiastical, Can You Forgive Her? is actually closely related to the earlier series. Its main subplot brings up to date the subplot of The Small House at Allington, and several other characters in London society are shared with the earlier series.

The main plot concerns Alice Vavasour, who lives on the fringes of genteel London society. She shares a rather bland character with several of Trollope's other heroines; this unwillingness to give real personalities to women is one of the reasons why he is a minor novelist compared to (say) Dickens and Thackeray. She starts the book engaged to the worthy John Grey, after a short affair with her cousin George. To a romantic girl, George Vavasour is everything John Grey is not; he is wild and dangerous, but the problem is that the danger is not just on the surface, and the men who know him consider him a scoundrel.

Soon after the beginning of the story, Alice commits the act for which the reader is asked to forgive her: she jilts Grey to become engaged to George. From a worldly perspective, this is obviously an extremely foolish act; for George is not only penniless but also about to go deeply into debt to finance a campaign to become a Member of Parliament. As George is brought to realise that his worldly ambition is in fact empty - it doesn't bring him the respect of others - he becomes violent and it is not too long before Alice also realises that she has made a serious mistake.

At its root, Can You Forgive Her? is a sexist novel; only to the irrational women in the story is it not clear that George Vavasour is a villain. By turning the conventions of the romantic novel on their head - for George could be made into a Byronic hero without too much difficulty, and then redeemed by the love of the right woman - Trollope has created a story which is shackled to the conventional ideas of his day.