Trollope covers broad range of life in this wonderfully amusing tale of three very diverse clerks and the career paths they take in Victorian England. He depicts them with depth and sympathy and you can't help feeling sorry for the plights their own follies bring upon them. Trollope knew the life he wrote about from his own eventful and long remembered career as a postal worker! Romance and vivid scene painting combine with social comentary to make Three Clerks a classic worth reading for pleasure as well as for the cultural history education it offers.

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.

It's quite strange that this book, of all Trollope, is so hard to find. Reviewers didn't like it when it was originally published in the late 1800s, and it never shook its reputation as ultra-tedious. This mystifies me. The melodrama between politically radical Lord Jack Hampton and Marion Fay, a non-aristocratic young Quaker woman who's more of a lady than several of the "ladies" in the book, is flirtatious, accessible and fun (Hampton repeatedly teases Marion that he fell for her when she "poked his fire," i.e. tended his fireplace with a poker--a bolder play with innuendo than Trollope usually engages in). It then turns passionate when Marion won't marry Jack because of a secret trouble involving life-threatening illness. T. uses the situation to examine with great depth and sensitivity the desire to consummate the spiritual union of two souls via marriage. This is the most careful look at what marriage means in T.'s ideal world that I have read in his work yet. He makes it exciting and suspenseful, since we're waiting to see if Marion will really get to poke Jack's fire--or if an unthinkable separation will occur. As in all T., there is a hilarious cast of characters who toe the line that separates the comically pathetic from the dangerously antisocial--for example, will Jack's archetypical evil stepmom just grumble her way through life, or will she scheme to kill Jack? The multiple marriage and family plots are very well integrated, unlike in some other T. novels.

Start at the beginning, with Can You Forgive Her?, and just keep going straight through the six "political" (aka Palliser) novels. You won't be able to stop; you'll be amazed at how modern, how psychologically penetrating they are (and you'll re-think your conception of Victorian); you'll be hugely entertained. I think I was most surprised by the strength of his characterization of women; equally surprising was the undertow of physical, erotic drives between characters.

This guide, at once learned and down to earth, provides a detailed look at one of the greatest writers of the 19th century, Anthony Trollope. Always a popular favorite, and only now being accorded the academic and critical attention he so richly deserves, this guide takes a reader through his many novels, travel pieces, criticism, translation and biography. Trollope was an indefatigable observer of middle- and upper-middle-class life at the height of the British Empire, during the mid-19th century. His unusually acute psychological observations -- still telling today -- and his keen eye and ear for social nuance and political intrigue are unparalleled in literature (George Eliot, a close friend, said she couldn't have embarked on "Middlemarch" without the groundwork Trollope laid in his Barsetshire novels). This volume includes thoughtful essays on all of the novels, with tidbits on critical reception at the time of their publication. It also describes aspects of Trollope's art -- his prose style, his sense of characterization, his plotting, his humor, his moral depth and his literary antecedents. For someone new to the author, it is a welcome introduction to his work; for those already in thrall to this supreme novelist's skill, it is an invaluable resource, a reminder of the breadth of Trollope's talent. It's a volume to be dipped into or savored at length. Filled with intelligence, insight and wit, this literary companion belongs on the shelf of any thoughtful reader's library.

Plantagenet Palliser reluctantly becomes the Prime Minister of England. Lady Glencora continues her self-appointed task as a meddler in affairs of the heart and now politics. We are glad to see the couple back at the forefront of our story, the 5th entry of the Palliser saga. Re-appearing characters Lizzie Eustace and Phineas Finn are present, but only in minor roles. The delightful Marie, now Mrs. Finn, stands by Cora in triumph and trouble. Lopez slithers on the scene and courts Emily Wharton, much to her family's dismay. The novels of Anthony Trollope are the Victorian equivalent of daytime TV dramas. They are lightweight, but entertaining. The pace is leisurely, and the book goes on for 700+ pages. Graham Greene once wrote that Trollope's novels ease stress levels because nothing much happens. The stylish presentation in smoothly written prose compensates the reader nicely. Besides, nobody captured the comic essence of Victorian manners and morals as Trollope. The unyielding men and women are often the cause of their own dilemmas. This book is a pleasant contrast to the noise, bustle, and electronic hardware of modern life. Recommended reading. ;-)

Anthony Trollope has created yet another book full of twisted plots and fatal loves. Another book to read and cherish.

When Plantagenet Palliser (Duke of Omnium) is named Prime Minister, his wife, the Duchess Glencora, is delighted. Immediately she plunges into politics herself, giving huge parties intended to support the Duke, who is completely honorable, but unfortunately detached and reserved, seeming at times icy to those whose political backing is needed. Glencora, one of Trollope's most delightful creations, has a sparkling personality, but is occasionally too outspoken and is sometimes misunderstood. Eventually her well-intended machinations result in embarrassment for the Duke's ministry.

In the other main plot, Emily Wharton ignores the advice of her father and almost all her friends when she falls in love with Ferdinand Lopez, about whom very little is known except that he seems to be a wealthy gentleman. Finally she persuades her father to give his permission for her marriage. Very quickly she discovers that she has made a horrendous mistake, and her life becomes a living h! ell. Only one of her old friends remains true--Arthur Fletcher, who vows that he will always love no one but her.

Anyone who is interested in Victorian history and British politics will find the novel a pure delight. Others may find it slow going and mystifying in spots, although no such knowledge or interest is needed for the Emily-Lopez plot. Lopez is one of the most despicable villains in all of Trollope's fiction, ranking with George Vavasor of "Can You Forgive Her?" Emily, on the other hand, sometimes becomes tiresome in her queer, fastidious obstinacy.

The character of Plantagenet Palliser is finely drawn. He is a man who is scrupulously honest, too much so for partisan politics. He is a natural leader and yet a thin-skinned, conscientious man who takes any criticism to heart. He loves his vivacious wife, who teases him mercilessly when she wishes to upset him. The match seems very odd, and their marriage began under inauspicious circumstances, and yet she,! in her way, admires and adores her husband.

"The Pr! ime Minister" is an outstanding work by one of literature's greatest novelists, mainly because of his brilliant handling of character. No one does it better.

This book, when compared to what is written today, is excellent. Trollope is a master with words - as all readers of his works will agree. He has a tremendous command of the written word - unlike authors of today!! However, for Trollope compared to Trollope, the book is just so-so. Many of his other novels are far superior. The book concerns the trials and tribulations of Miss MacKenzie after she inherits a fortune and then looses it. We see how her friends, neighbors, and male paramours react to her as her status in life changes. It's, as all Trollope books, enjoyable, but not one of his better books.

Anthony Trollope spends so much time doing the things that well-meaning creative writing profesors now tell one never to do--his editorial voice peppers each novel, he avoids subtle foreshadowing in favor of telling you essentially what will happen next, and he consistently drives plot towards a theme. Yet Trollope, a consummate Victorian, seems intrinsically modern whereas many more "literarily correct" modern humorists grow antique in a week or less. The secret, of course, is character, an eye and an ear for class distinctions, and a skewering wit combined with tremendous fellow-feeling for the foibles of his characters. Miss MacKenzie contains much of Trollope at his best--the title character is a beautifully observed genteel poor spinster-to-be suddenly visited with the misfortune of fortune. The author assiduously exposes flaw after flaw in Miss MacKenzie and her social milieu, and yet we like her better for the harsh light. In this world of tremendous unkindness, it is nice to remember that one can be honest without being brutal. Trollope, a writer of genial works of whimsy, brings the quiet honesty of literary fiction home safely here.

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.

This work of literature encompassing life among the upper-crust of society in Victorian England is by far the best fictional representation I have ever read.

Trollope creates fantastic characters from the saintly/virginal society girl who pines for a lover, to a dastardly gentleman who squanders his families small fortune on rather unsavoury habits such as gambling and less than scrupulous women.

Most of this is told through the perspective of the matriarch of one family (Lady Carbury) who's only wish is that her son (a scoundrel at best) marry well and with any luck above his station (which he tries to sabotage at every turn) and for her daughter to marry into wealth at any cost whatsoever. That with the general gossip and the "Newcomer's from Paris" (The Family Melmotte) who left Paris hurriedly it seems under a rather dark cloud of suspicion will keep you glued to this book throughout. It is a very lengthy novel (481 pages) but you will be desperately turning the pages in the Appendix hoping for just a bit more!

Picture a world in which a shadowy entreprenour rubs shoulders with the great and powerful, while hard-driving yuppies stop at nothing to be associated with his schemes. Sounds like Ron Reagan's "Morning in America," doesn't it? Except it is Victorian London. The entreprenour is Auguste Melmotte. The yuppies are the scions of great and small families hurling themselves at his daughter, his phantasmagorical railway (between Salt Lake City and Vera Cruz yet!) company, and the hem of his cloak. And the book is Anthony Trollope's THE WAY WE LIVE NOW.

Like all of Trollope's books, this one is as well crafted as any by Eliot or Thackeray; yet the theme and handling are strikingly modern. I came to this book by way of the Barsetshire novels with their depiction of rural clergy. I should have read THE WAY WE LIVE NOW first.

Especially worth noting are the surprisingly full characterizations of Marie Melmotte, daughter of the financier, who is courted by her emotional inferiors, and Roger Carbury, a rural landowner who holds aloof from the fray and helps several of the others pick up the pieces from their lives.

The only negative is the book's anti-semitism, though it makes several attempts to lift itself from this charge.

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.

Graham Greene writes in one of his novels of a troubled person who relaxes from work-related stress by reading Anthony Trollope on the weekends. Why? Nothing happens. The writing is peaceful, serene, and very proper.

"Phineas Finn" is the second volume in the famous "Palliser" series, and it is a typical Anthony Trollope novel. Trollope's style is so refined and polished that one really doesn't mind reading a 700+ page book just to learn of the commonplace events that serve the purpose of plot and character development in his novels. This book will not give one any great insight into the human mind or soul, but it will entertain with its delightful description of Victorian manners and morals. As seems typical of many 19th century English novels the triumvirate of love, marriage, and money drives the main events of the story. The mating dance of love is primly and at times ironically portrayed as it plays out in drawing rooms, dinner parties, and visits to country estates. Phineas Finn, upon completing his education, is offered the opportunity to run for Parliament, and gets elected. Considerable space in the novel is dedicated to the nuts and bolts of 19th century British politics (a possible drawback for contemporary American readers). Members of the House of Commons serve their districts without compensation. Phineas, alas, is not wealthy. This lack of personal wealth is the catalyst for many of Phineas' subsequent actions. Phineas embarks on a search for love, a suitable wife, and financial means. He is drawn to several women. Mary Flood Jones, Lady Laura Standish, Violet Effingham, and Madame Marie Goesler at different times engage his romantic interest. The most interesting of these women is Marie Goesler, an independently minded widow of means. She is German, her late husband was Austrian, and many of the stuffy Victorian rules about a woman's proper place don't suit her personality. As this is only the second volume of the Palliser series, we will see more of Madame Goesler. She has already enchanted the Duke of Omnium, an elderly nobleman who is Plantagenet Palliser's uncle. Palliser and his wife, Lady Glencora, are the main characters of the series, but only play a minor role in this book.

"Phineas Finn" has the delighful charm of a fine old painting or a piece of carefully preserved antique china. It's light weight, but entertaining. It charms with its grace. The pace is leisurely. Reading this novel is an escape in time to another world. A world apart from cell phones, cable TV, and all the rest of noisy modern life. One can quietly relax while dozing in the twilight of this peaceful book.

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.

Dr. Wortle's School is basically the story of two couples in love and how their affections disrupt the tranquil setting of the school. The main plot revolves around Dr. Wortle's "usher" or school assistant, Mr. Peacocke and his wife. A scandal from their past threatens their happiness. The second, very minor, plot is the love story between Dr. Wortle's daughter, Mary and the good-natured Lord Carstairs.

The joy of the novel is watching Dr. Wortle deal with these crises. Will he stand by Mr. Peacocke in his time of need? Will he allow his daughter to become engaged to the very young Lord Carstairs? The answers to these questions and the reactions of the other characters are handled in the typical Trollope fashion, with compassion and common sense. Sprinkle the whole thing with deft strokes of humor and you have what is Dr. Wortle's School.

As I mentioned in my review of Castle Richmond, I am amazed what a modern thinker Trollope was. His reputation as a "old-fashioned" author is entirely undeserved. In a day and age (late 1870s)when actions and image were everything, where a hint of scandal could ruin a person, it must have seemed radical to stress that persons should be judged as much on their "nature" or character as anything else. This is one of those general notions that could be applied just as well in 2000 as in 1878.

You might wonder, given what I have already said, why I give Dr. Wortle's School four stars. When you compare them to his towering Last Chronicle of Barset, Orley Farm and The Way We Live Now, it seems a slight injustice to those five star books to give all the others five stars. Dr. Wortle's School is very readable certainly, but it does not quite obtain the status of "masterpiece" that these other novels can claim. As always, Trollop's humor, dialogue, and characterizations make this an enjoyable novel that can be recommeded to anyone.

In 'Dr. Wortle's School' Anthony Trollope takes on a very controversial and scandalous subject, that of a bigamous marriage. With a very even hand Trollope allows us to see into the motivations of his characters and truly come to understand why they've done the things they've done, and how they justify their actions. Instead of preaching religion, which clearly isn't Trollope's style, he chooses to take a more liberal look at the underlying morality of the actions of his characters. 'Dr. Wortle's School' has a very modern ring for a Victorian novel, and the themes and characters could easily have been depicted by Joanna rather than Anthony Trollope. Add to that the mysterious tone of Wilkie Collins and you have a very satisfying Victorian novel.