For many people, Trollope is a writer to stay away from. They assume he wrote terribly twee novels about vicars and tea cosies (which is half true). But anyone who has read "He Knew Was Right" will know just how progressive and real Trollope is. This incredibly insightful study of a marriage reveals a great deal not only about Victorian society but about the eternal struggles between men and women. It's a mystery to me why this book is not better known.

In his autobiography, Trollope zips past this story. I couldn't put it down, and read the last 40 moving and exhausting pages aloud to my wife. The Pallisers can get a bit wearying at times, though I love them all. But there is nothing tiresome in here; this book roars with its two intersecting plots and the relatively unique idea of making a sympathetic character, one whom you truly care for and about, a complete, irredeemable fool.

Several strong secondary characters, all just a little more complex than they seem, combine with a knock-out plot and vivid main characters, to make this my favorite Trollope novel. The man who will not accept the good around him but prefers to see the bad...? How's that for an eternal theme?

The Penguin Classic edition of He Knew He Was Right has a wonderful introduction. Frank Kermode provides a fascinating explanation of how the constraints of Victorian society limited the ways in which Trollope could write about "sexual jealousy," and how a relatively mild (by today's standards) incident (here, calling a woman by her "Christian" (first) name) could be the basis for suspicion of "infidelity." Kermode also provides an illuminating discussion comparing hero Louis Treveylan's obsession and jealousy with that of Othello. Finally, Kermode relates the novel to others of the period, both those by Trollope and those of his contemporaries.

While the focus of the novel is the main character's mental deterioration resulting from his unreasonable jealousy and increasing isolation, both from society and reality, Trollope also provides a cast of interesting women faced with possible marriage partners. At a time when a woman's only "career" opportunity was to make a successful marriage, the women in He Knew He Was Right each react differently to the male "opportunities" that come their way. Kermode notes that Trollope was not a supporter of the rights of women, yet he manages to describe the unreasonable limitations on, and expectations of, women in a sympathetic light.

The "main story," of Trevelyan and his wife, is actually one of the least compelling of the man-woman pairings in the novel. What I mean is that while their story IS compelling, the others are substantially more so. This is a wonderful book. And, personally I'd like to note that I laughed out loud while reading it. This was on a cross-country airplane flight, and I got some strange looks for laughing at what appeared to be a thick "serious" novel.

Ralph The Heir, written late in Antony Trollope's life, is not as well known as his Palliser or Barchester novels, and this is a great shame. To my mind his talents are on display here in all their mature glory; his penetrating observation of human motive and weakness, combined with a raucous, convaluted storyline and a wicked sense of humor. Trollope knows people through and through, and it is no small thing that he refuses here to make even his villain a monster. In true Trollope form, Ralph who is the heir (there are two Ralphs and two heirs) is in embarrased circumstances. Having spent a rather idle life waiting for his uncle to die so that he might inherit (and with the old squire hale at sixty, this will not likely happen soon), Ralph finds himself in debt up to his eyeballs...or perhaps his hand-tooled hunting boots. With a stable of hunters and a fierce riding breeches habit, Ralph must do something, but what? Just what Ralph does, and how it touches the whole pantheon within his circle (and a few decidedly outside it!) gently underlines Trollope's deep concerns for his time: just what is a gentleman? What, indeed, is nobility in man and woman? And how are we so often willfully blinkered by love, loyalty, ambition, and hate? There are several storylines in Ralph The Heir, and the author does not disappoint those who delight in watching him tie all these delicious tales together in almost Seinfeldian fashion. Parliament figures prominently and the election (or rather the attempt at an election) of a principal character is so marvelously portrayed, so wicked, it alone is worth the price of the book. Trollope is a gem. Gentle, kindly in his characters, he truly loves people and when he laughs at them, I rather think he is laughing also at himself. Enjoy this; it's one of Trollope's best.

Despite the criticisms levelled at Trollope for his "authorial intrusions" (see Henry James for example) this novel is always a pleasure to read. The characters take precedence over the plot, as in any Trollopian fiction and this is what makes a novel like BARCHESTER more palatable to the modern reader, as compared to any of Dickens's. Some readers may find the ecclesiastical terms confusing at first but with a little help (see the Penguin introduction for example), all becomes clear. What is important, however, is the interaction between the all-too-human characters and in this novel there are plenty of situations to keep you, the reader, amused.

Do yourself a favour and take a trip back into Nineteenth century where technology is just a blink in everyone's eye. What you will discover, however, is that human beings have not really changed, just the conventions have.

I rushed home every day after work to read a little more of this Trollope comedy. The book starts out with the death of a bishop during a change in political power. The new bishop is a puppet to his wife Mrs. Proudie and her protégé Mr. Slope. Along the way we meet outrageous clergymen, a seductive invalid from Italy, and a whole host of delightfully ridiculous characters. Trollope has designed most of these characters to be "over the top". I kept wondering what a film version starring the Monty Python characters would look like. He wrote an equivalent of a soap opera, only it doesn't take place at the "hospital", it takes place with the bishops. Some of the characters you love, some of the characters you hate, and then there are those you love to hate. Trollope speaks to the reader throughout the novel using the mimetic voice, so we feel like we are at a cocktail party and these 19th century characters are our friends (or at least the people we're avoiding at the party!). The themes and characters are timeless. The book deals with power, especially power struggles between the sexes. We encounter greed, love, desperation, seductive sirens, and generosity. Like many books of this time period however, the modern reader has to give it a chance. No one is murdered on the first page, and it takes quite a few chapters for the action to pick up. But pick up it does by page 70, and accelerates into a raucously funny novel from there. Although I didn't read the Warden, I didn't feel lost and I'm curious to read the rest of this series after finishing this book. Enjoy!

"Barchester Towers" has proven to be the most popular novel Anthony Trollope ever wrote-despite the fact that most critics would rank higher his later work such as "The Last Chronicle of Barset","He Knew He Was Right" and "The Way We Live Now".While containing much satire those great novels are very powerful and disturbing, and have little of the genial good humor that pervades "Barchester Towers".Indeed after "Barchester Towers",Trollope would never write anything so funny again-as if comedy was something to be eschewed.That is too bad,because the book along with its predecessor "The Warden" are the closest a Victorian novelist ever came to approximating Jane Austen."Barchester Towers" presents many unforgettable characters caught in a storm of religious controversy,political and social power struggles and romantic and sexual imbroglios.All of this done with a light but deft hand that blends realism,idealism and some irresistible comedy.It has one of the greatest endings in all of literature-a long,elaborate party at a country manor(which transpires for about a hundred pages)where all of the plot's threads are inwoven and all of the character's intrigues come to fruition."Barchester Towers" has none of the faults common to Trollope's later works -(such as repetiveness)it is enjoyable from beginning to end.Henry James(one of our best novelists,but not one of our best critics) believed that Trollope peaked with "The Warden"and that the subsequent work showed a falling off as well as proof that Trollope was no more than a second rate Thackeray.For the last fifty years critics have been trying to undo the damage that was done to Trollope's critical reputation."Barchester Towers"proves not only to be a first rate novel but probably the most humorous Victorian novel ever written.

There is a lot to like about this book. It has the usual host of colorful and varied characters that one finds in Trollope's novels. There are strong and complex women, sturdy and weak-willed men, and some wonderful set-pieces. It's a bit of a let-down after _Phineas Finn_, though, which to my mind is the greatest political novel in the English language. The previous two 'Palliser' novels having been clearly both for and about Liberals, I think that Trollope was struggling in this novel to write in a way that would both reflect and appeal to more Conservative sensibilities. So we get a lot of domestic gossip, a little mild anti-semitism, and endless lectures about the Proper way for a Gentleman to Behave to a Lady. Still, the protagonist, Lizzie Eustace, is a gem.

Lucy Morris is a bore. If you like Jane Austen you will like this novel! It has all the necessary ingredients to keep you turning the pages. It's fun and charming to read just like its heroine Lizzie Eustace. Trollope argues that she is no heroine at all but it is when she appears that your interest is held the longest and that you laugh the loudest. She is wicked and selfish and vain and yet childike spoiled and that's what makes her great. Lucy Morris in comparison bores you with her goodness and her morality and her prim and proper attitude which although greatly admired in 19th century women leaves her nonetheless dull and insipid in comparison to charmingly wicked Lizzie.

I have only read one Anthony Trollope novel, and I had the very good fortune of having chosen "The Eustace Diamonds." This superbly constructed novel begins with what is probably my favorite opening sentence of a novel--it's right up there with the opening sentence to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice":

"It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies--who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two--that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself." The second sentence further clarifies Lizzie's character when it goes on with, "We will tell the story of Lizzie Greystock from the beginning, but we will not dwell over it at great length, as we might do if we loved her."

Lizzie Greystock--eventually to become Lady Eustace--is a fascinating combination of cunning and foolishness, of avarice and pitiable character, of steely backbone and whimpering fits. She reminds me so very much of both Emma Bovary and Scarlett O'Hara. Her determination to keep the Eustace family diamonds entirely for herself is what sets the novel in motion, and with this rather simple device, Trollope goes on to spin out a tale which encompasses morality, greed, Victorian social mores, the corrupting influence of money, and the blindness it can cause to everything else of value.

Lizzie is contrasted, with every shade under the sun, with the sweet and constant Lucy Morris. Picture the contrast as one very much like that of Scarlett O'Hara and Melanie Wilkes. "The Eustace Diamonds" is a deliciously satisfying book, and a classic for a very good reason: despite having been written in the 19th century, what it has to say reverberates as soundly now as when Trollope first published it. I can't recommend it highly enough.

In this curious autobiiography, Anthony Trollope sketches in the outlines of his life. He relates the misery of his childhood, the heroism of his mother, the tragedy and ultimate failure of his father. If not banal, at least typical material for an autobiography, and makes for good reading. The second two-thirds of the book summarizes his writings, and relate his ideas on everything from literary criticism to suggestions for young writers. Perhaps most interesting are his assessments of his own work, praising or condemning them with little emotion. Of course there is the famous analysis of his working methods, where he counts words and disciplines himself to an astonishingly regular routine of writing. He produced 47 novels, edited and wrote for magazines, all the while working full time for the post office. One distressing feature of this work is the almost complete lack of intormation about his wife and family....It is clear that he lived with and loved his fictional characters more than his corporeal family. Also, the grammar and punctuation are often awkward but this is still a highly readable and fascinating book.

If one has read a number of Trollope's novels, one would expect that Trollope would have written precisely this sort of autobiography. In fact, it is almost impossible to imagine it having taken any other form.

Trollope writes not so much of his life (though he does touch upon the major events), as of his occupation. Although employed most of his adult life by the postal service, Trollope decided to engage in a second and parallel career as a writer. He is forthright about his motives: the satisfaction of writing, but also fame, financial reward, and social standing. Looking back on his career, Trollope is proud of a job well done. The oddity is that he seems quite as happy telling us about how much he sold each work for, and the financial dealings with his publishers, as he does about his books and characters. In fact, near the end of the book he gives a complete list of his novels and how much he managed to sell each one for (with very few exceptions, he preferred to sell the rights to a novel, rather than getting a percentage of sales). What emerges is a portrait of the novelist not as an artist so much as a dedicated, disciplined craftsman. He explicitly denigrates the value of genius and creativity in a novelist in favor of hard work and keeping to a schedule of writing.

The early sections of the book dealing with his childhood are fascinating. By all measures, Trollope had a bad childhood. His discussions of his father are full of pathos and sadness. What is especially shocking is the lack of credit he gives to his mother, who, in early middle age, realizing that her husband was a perpetual financial failure, decided to salvage the family's fortunes by becoming a novelist. He notes that while nursing several children dying from consumption, she wrote a huge succession of books, enabling the family to live a greatly improved mode of existence. Her achievement must strike an outside observer as an incredibly heroic undertaking. Trollope seems scarcely impressed.

Some of the more interesting parts of the book are his evaluation of the work of many of his contemporaries. History has not agreed completely with all of his assessments. For instance, he rates Thackery as the greatest novelist of his generation, and HENRY ESMOND as the greatest novel in the language. HENRY ESMOND is still somewhat read, but it hardly receives the kind of regard that Trollope heaped on it, and it is certainly not as highly regarded as VANITY FAIR. Trollope's remarks on George Eliot are, however, far closer to general opinion. His remarks concerning Dickens, are, however, bizarre. It is obvious that Trollope really dislikes him, even while grudgingly offering some compliments. Quite perceptively, Trollope remarks that Dickens's famous characters are not lifelike or human (anticipating E. M. Forster's assessment that Dickens's characters are "flat" rather than "round" like those of Tolstoy or Austen) and that Dickens's famous pathos is artificial and inhuman (anticipating Oscar Wilde's wonderful witticism that "It would take a man with a heart of stone to cry at the death of Little Nell"). Even the most avid fan of Dickens would admit that his characters, while enormously vivid and well drawn, are nonetheless a bit cartoonish, and that much of the pathos is a tad over the top. But Trollope goes on to attack Dickens's prose: "Of Dickens's style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules . . . . To readers who have taught themselves to regard language, it must therefore be unpleasant." If one had not read Dickens, after reading Trollope on Dickens, one would wonder why anyone bothered to read him at all. One wonders if some of Trollope's problems with Dickens was professional jealousy. For whatever reason, he clearly believes that Dickens receives far more than his due.

Favorite moment: Trollope recounts being in a club working on the novel that turned into THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET, when he overheard two clergymen discussing his novels, unaware that he was sitting near them. One of them complained of the continual reappearance of several characters in the Barsetshire series, in particular Mrs. Proudie. Trollope then introduces himself, apologizes for the reappearing Mrs. Proudie, and promises, "I will go home and kill her before the week is over." Which, he says, he proceeded to do.

you should consider reading this too! Trollope writes candidly about his education (and about being a poor, mostly overlooked student), his lack of professional ambition (and how he finally got around to witing his first novel),and the ups and downs of his literary career (and his early rejections). He does all of this in the same conversational tone employed in his novels, making this autobiography feel more like a chat with an older, experienced friend than a learned, classic autobiography

... Too many plots, characters not given enough space to breathe, and way too much wrap-up yields a less than satisfying experience. But Trollope is a great writer, and when he's on top, as he is often throughout this book, he is untouchable. The Beargarden is astonishing, and has anyone ever written about so many different wastrels and made them all unique? Georgina and her brother Dolly could make a novel themselves. Poor Marie....desperate to be loved. Very touching stuff.

But the main story gets lost under so much weight that the overall novel loses its focus and just stunbles to a number of unconvincing conclusions. My favorite book is He Knew He Was Right. The sub-plots there enhance the story, and the characters are more vivid and less simplistic.

If you're here after the PBS series, note please...that series is adapted from this novel. There is a lot missing and a lot changed (all to the worse, I would argue). If you are new to Trollope, I would suggest The Palliser series or HKHWR. This is much less worth the time, though still a sparkling read with brilliant flashes.

Anti-Semitism? People are too touchy. The characters are certainly narrow-minded bigots, but Trollope himself is clear and potent. The "old, fat Jew" is among the most noble, most intelligent, and touching characters in Trollope. A gentleman, a sincere man, and one touched by the ugliness of his world but rising majestically above it.

The Enron collapse shows that, as long as we continue to enjoy the benefits of capitalism in the West, Trollope's most famous novel will continue to be timely. This has often been called Trollope's best novel: while it does not contain his best writing (which would be found in individual chapters of PHINEAS FINN and THE LAST CHRONICLER OF BARSET), nor is it his funniest (BARCHESTER TOWERS), it is his most consistently engaging in its details of a railway bubble in mid-Victorian London. The great financier at the center of it, Augustus Melmotte, rises from obscurity to be asked to host a dinner for the visiting emperor of China (which forms a splendid setpiece for the novel) on the eve of his financial ruin. The novel is very exciting and enjoyable, and shows Trollope straining the hardest to meet the standards set by his admitted hero, Thackeray; although this certainly doesn't meet the level of VANITY FAIR, it's still pretty good. There is a bit of a trouble that Trollope has too many subplots going and winds up spending hundreds of pages at the end (long after the work's main action is over) having to resolve them. One of the very best of these ongoing stories, the desperate attempts of the contemptibly snobbish (but still oddly sympathetic) Georgiana Longstaffe to find a husband, is as a result resolved much too suddenly and unsatisfactorily. I would still recommend THE WAY WE LIVE NOW as a fine read--and as a very splendid introduction to Trollope.

It is most when reading (or re-reading) Trollope that I realize how much recent novels suck. Trollope, who regarded novel-writing as a learned trade, shows wider understanding of human nature than twentieth-century, breadloaf-fed artistes. Trollope was the master of personal character. He knew what motivated people, and what faults kept them from behavior they knew was correct

The Way We Live Now is an examination, from a skilled, intelligent early Victorian, of the beginning of capital as worth. Melmotte might be any of current unscrupulous speculators you can name (if you even think speculating is ungentlemanly). I do not personally agree with Trollope as he seems to believe in birth and blood, but I can easily agree that those who buy notice are never worth notice.

At the heart of Trollope's Phineas Finn lies quite a unique (and perhaps presciently postmodern) notion of politics. However, to get at this theory, we readers must wade through the immense amount of exposition that typifies Trollope's writing. We must patiently and assiduously gather plot details from the frequent and plentiful parlor chat, table talk, and other various and sundry gossip that Trollope uses to advance what is an otherwise exceedingly meager plot. Nevertheless, such exposition, which moves at a pace roughly equivalent to that of continental drift, rewards the reader with quite a keen insight into mid-nineteenth century British politics and its relationship to the reality of human nature.

Perhaps the easiest way to approach the political critique at the heart of this novel is by defining the operative assumptions underlying representative politics in general. In theory, representative government is intended to grant the citizenry a say in legislative process, albeit indirectly. A particular representative is supposed to vote on a piece of proposed legislation in such a way that reflects the greater concerns of his constituency. Prior to the events of Phineas Finn, British representative government is grappling with the issue of whom to extend the franchise based on the criteria of real wealth, property, region of origin, etc. One thus gets the sense that the presence of such exclusionary criteria betrays a rather Platonic distaste for general democracy on the part of the parliament ministers. Thus, in creating a system of barriers or gateways between the public at large and the legislative apparatus, the governing body reduces the potential for an anarchic clamor of myriad and wide-ranging interests on the part of the citizenry, which could potentially derail the legislative process altogether. As a result a properly civic-minded representative may always act for the good of his constituency by exercising his judgment, regardless of whether or not his vote conflicts with his constituents' desires. In other words, built into this system of government is the elitist conviction that the governed may be at times too unruly to exercise its franchise prudently. Therefore, by withholding the franchise from those deemed too ignorant to vote wisely (a determination based on various socioeconomic considerations), and by inserting elected officials between the enfranchised and the legislative apparatus itself, government achieves a normative regularity.

However, with the implementation of such a system of governments also come opportunities to exploit and abuse the system. A certain aphorism-- which I attribute to Michel Foucault, though I am not entirely certain that it is indeed his-- comes to mind: "a system is defined by what escapes it." In other words, because a system results from the desire to perpetuate the plane of consistency from which it emerges, the system must necessarily exclude that which is inconsistent with its purpose. Therefore, around any system arises a margin of excluded possibilities and potentialities; however, those dedicated to the system seek to refine it in such a way as to increase its power to envelop and re-absorb that which it had originally pushed to its margins. Thus any system exists in a state of perpetual refinement because it aims to absorb back into itself that which has escaped it into the margins.

Into such a system steps the young and callow Phineas Finn, a man who is indeed marginal in that he is Irish and a commoner, and it is that position of marginality which the system seeks to incorporate into itself. However, one must understand that the system does not incorporate into itself those who dwell at its margins in order to empower them. Rather, it seeks to neutralize the threateningly unregulated marginality that individuals like Phineas Finn represent by bringing them into its regulatory, normalizing regime, and as we shall soon see, this is precisely what almost happens to Phineas.

With the above in mind, one may ask if whether there is any real benefit to entering such a system, if it is indeed essentially neutralizing and normalizing. I answer provisionally that the system into which Phineas enters, i.e., British Parliament, conceals its regulatory, homogenizing and neutralizing essence beneath a seductive veneer of power and celebrity, and it is this veneer to which Phineas succumbs. That is, it seems that at first a government office offers one the ability to satisfy one's desires, because it is a forum policymaking that also generates a cult of celebrity, and I need not explain the advantages of being a celebrity. Therefore, although we may initially think Phineas one lucky devil, we soon discover that Phineas's various political adventures are characterized by the necessity of forsaking that which he desires. For example, Phineas must abandon his desire for Lady Laura Standish because he cannot satisfy Lady Laura's own political ambitions, and later his political indebtedness to Lord Brantford forces him to abandon of his desire for Violet Effingham, with whom Lord Chiltern is in love. In fact, Phineas soon discovers that posturing, longwinded orations and cloakroom alliances epitomize politics more than any deep desire to get things done.

Mr. Kennedy, on the other hand, is quite a virtuous consummate politician, because he is devoted to carrying out every administrative detail that accompanies government office. In truth though, he is really nothing more than a particularly diligent paper pusher. But, however propitious his demeanor is to the endless administrative duties he must carry out, Trollope nevertheless portrays him as a dry, sober, and nearly humorless. Furthermore, Trollope also portrays Mr. Kennedy a sort of gentle but effective disciplinarian in his married life. Thus we may conclude that political success requires the abnegation, or at least the endless deferral, of one's true desires, and that the most successful politician is one who can most effectively subordinate his desire to the workings of government. Therefore, the system seduces Phineas and his peers with a promise of power that it never delivers, and furthermore the system steals one's position of resistance from him via assimilation into a normalizing regime.

Thus we have arrived at the essence of Trollope's political critique: that the British system of representative government is not dedicated to progress, but to stasis. The government preserves and extends the influence of the status quo through a subtle and complex array of practices: e.g., needlessly repetition of proposed legislature, stupifyingly long-winded filibusters, etc. These practices thus result in a perpetual deferral of desire on the part of plebeian, politician and rising young man alike.

All merits of the novel itself aside (and I did enjoy it very much), this edition seems to have been cobbled together either hastily or carelessly. It was full of errors in punctuation and spelling (including inconsistent spelling of characters' names) which I can hardly believe are the author's. It was a disappointment to me, especially given the fine tradition of the Everyman Library.

Also, the notes on the text, as is unfortunately so common, give away major plot points. I would strongly advise anyone reading for pleasure rather than scholarship skip the notes, or read them only once you've finished the book.

That said, Phineas Finn was a wonderful read. I began Trollope with Can You Forgive Her?, and while I did like it, I liked Phineas so much more. Unlike many male novelists of the period (especially those who were, as Trollope, embraced at the time), he demonstrates a sympathy for and understanding of the difficult choices presented to the women of his time, and does not shrink from presenting women who are intelligent, complex, and quite at home in the political world of London. Lady Laura Standish, Miss Violet Effingham, and Madame Max Goesler might each have been the heroines of their own novels--indeed, their complexities and the depths of their emotional and political lives throw Phineas's own lack of depth and complexity into relief. And by that I don't mean that Trollope nodded while writing his hero, but that he rather deftly endowed him with indifferent qualities as compared to the women his life.

I wouldn't give away the ending of the novel, but I confess I was a little disappointed in Phineas's final choice. Trollope was, after all, a Victorian gentleman, and perhaps he must be forgiven for wrapping up his hero's adventures in what seemed to me rather a prosaic way. I have yet to read Phineas Redux, and perhaps that sequel may redeem Mr. Finn yet.

PHINEAS FINN is a book of many virtues and one unfortunate flaw. The flaw lies in the ending, of which I can say nothing here without giving away a bit of the plot. Let me just say that the ending is a bit of a "tack on." Trollope himself confessed in his AUTOBIOGRAPHY that he botched the ending, and explains that when he decided to write a second novel starring Phineas Finn, he awkwardly had to correct the mistakes he made in the ending of the previous book.

The virtues of the book lie in part in its presentation of the social complexities of the British upper class in 1860s. While a political history of the period could explain the various ins and outs of the major pieces of legislation dealt with at the time, Trollope shows us how many individuals at the time actually felt about these issues from the inside. In this way, Trollope performs a service that no historian ever could. Virtually all the major political figures of the time, from Gladstone to Disraeli appear under thinly veiled aliases.

But the true heart of the book is Trollope's great characters. I absolutely love Jane Austen. She is one of my two or three favorite writers. But sometimes I find the enormous propriety of her characters to be a tad tiring. In these way her characters, as magnificent as they otherwise might be, sometimes seem a little less than fully human. Trollope's characters, on the other hand, often fail to act with complete propriety. They do improper things, and feel improper emotions. Our hero falls in love with one woman, then another, feels attraction to another, and falls in love with yet another, and in general fails in his role as a great romantic hero. A woman marries someone she doesn't love, yet retains feelings for another, and suffers from the threat of a bad marriage. Another woman is attracted to two men, and must decide which. Two close friends love the same woman. I find all this emotional complexity to be extremely compelling.

Trollope's most compelling and interesting characters are nearly all female. In the book, Lord Chiltern seems cardboardish and unbelievable, the title character likable but not terribly vivid. But whenever Lady Laura, or Madame Goesler, or Violet Effingham take the stage, the novel comes to life. This is not unique to this novel. In nearly all his books, Trollope's most compelling characters are female.

If we could give half stars, I would give this one four and a half stars because of the weak ending. But I will stick with five rather than four, partly because the rest of the book easily makes up for the weakish ending, and one can view the excellent PHINEAS REDUX as the real ending of the novel. Either way, I heartily recommend the novel.

Eye for an Eye has an immature young man making rather a mess of his first entree into adult opportunities. The book is a jaunty, interesting run to a conclusion--a reminder that immature behavior by a young adult can have unforeseen consequences. Many of the devices of Trollope's comic novels are here, but they subserve a plot which resolves in a decidedly non-comic fashion. A light read, an interesting commentary, and a social frankness that does not seem at all old fashioned. Trollope was not always an ardent critic of his own social order, but he understood the problems, as this book shows in a non-preachy way.