Written in 1870, when Trollope was at the height of his powers, Sir Harry Hotspur is a moving story of greed, courtship, and conflicting emotions. The story is simple. Harry Hotspur is immensely wealthy. He has lost his son, leaving him with just a daughter for as heir to his fortune. His daughter loves a low life cousin who wants her money. The financial troubles of the cousin, and the emotional conflict between father and daughter create the drama of this fine short novel.

In 1867, at a time when he was one of the best known and best selling authors in the world, Anthony Trollope conceived the idea of experimenting with anonymous publication, in order to find out whether the multitude bought his books for their literary excellence or merely for the "brand name" on the cover. Two relatively short novels, "Nina Balatka" and "Linda Tressel", were the result. Taken together, they offer a glimpse of a different Trollope from the familiar chronicler of politicians and parsons.

The two stories have much in common. Each is set in a foreign city that Trollope had recently visited ("Nina" in Prague, "Linda" in Nuremberg), with a plot centered on the impact of an aunt's religious bigotry on a young woman's marital prospects. In one, the zealous aunt is Roman Catholic and opposes her niece's betrothal to a wealthy Jew. In the other, an Anabaptist aunt strives to promote a union between beautiful, wealthy Linda Tressel and a clownish, middle-aged bureaucrat.

"Nina" is the better realized of the two tales. Troubling the course of true love are both the antisemitism of the Balatka family and the countervailing suspicions of the Jewish community, forces that work to drive the lovers apart. Some of the machinations are clumsy, but character is, as usual, more important than incident in Trollope. The portrayal of the mutually hostile religious communities is especially effective, showing a broad range of attitudes in each camp. Nina and her fiancé are themselves complicated figures, for it takes a long time for their love to completely overcome prejudices instilled from childhood.

"Linda", by contrast, suffers from dramatis personae who are mostly caricatures, out of place in a serious, even grim, story. The religious motif verges on the absurd. There are reasons why a 19th century Catholic family would revolt against a relative's marriage to a Jew. There are none to move an Anabaptist to insist on linking her nearest kinswoman to a worldly boor. Indeed, the author does not have much notion of what "Anabaptists" are. (He seems to regard them as a species of Calvinist, which is about like labeling Ross Perot a "Republican".) Religious bigotry detached from any recognizable religion can evoke only laughter, which is not the response that "Linda Tressel" is supposed to arouse.

Trollope's experiment did not turn out particularly well. The mildly unusual settings and themes of these works could not hide his identity from alert critics, several of whom quickly pierced the veil of anonymity. On the other hand, readers were fooled and declined to buy, even though the reviews were generally positive. "Another ten years of unpaid unflagging labor might have built up a second reputation," Trollope wrote in his autobiography, but "I could not at once induce English readers to read what I gave to them, unless I gave it with my name." That is what he did thereafter, bringing the career of the "alternative Trollope" to an end.

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.

"Nina Balatka" and its companion novel "Linda Tressel" represent the oddest experiment of Anthony Trollope's literary career. Long established as a leading novelist, he published these two tales anonymously, wishing to see whether, starting without the support of his fame, he could create "a second literary identity". Reviews were favorable, but sales meager. "Another ten years of unpaid unflagging labor might have built up a second reputation," Trollope wrote in his autobiography, but "I could not at once induce English readers to read what I gave to them, unless I gave it with my name."

So the trial was abandoned, leaving behind two Trollopian novels with an exotic flavor. Both are set in foreign, non-English speaking lands, and, while both deal with romance and religion - themes certainly not foreign to the author - they do so in untypical ways.

"Nina Balatka" takes place in Prague, which Trollope had recently visited. There a gloomy imperial court (of Ex-Emperor Ferdinand, who had abdicated the Austrian throne after the revolution of 1848) presided over an almost medieval city, where the Jewish population, though possessing some degree of civic rights, still lived in a ghetto, and an unenlightened Christianity was a powerful social force.

The story that Trollope sets here, of the family-crossed romance between a young Catholic woman and a somewhat older Jewish merchant, seems far less daring and unconventional now than it did in 1867. The plot, too, is creaky, its mainspring a business about title deeds whose significance is obscure to the reader (and most likely to the author also).

Meticulous plotting and close fidelity to legal niceties are not, however, the virtues that one seeks in Trollope. His strengths lie in the portrayal of manners, emotions and character. In those respects, "Nina Balatka" is worthy of its author. It is also a testament to the power of his imagination. A single visit to Prague was scarcely sufficient to make him expert in the customs of the city's Catholics and Jews. There are glaring improbabilities, chief among them that Anton, the eldest son of a wealthy father in a traditional Jewish community, should have reached his middle thirties as a bachelor. Nevertheless, this largely fanciful society coheres in the reader's mind and seems almost as believable as Barsetshire or Gatherum Castle.

Readers of Trollope, after they have devoured his famous works, tend to become voracious. This flawed but moving novel, though not a gourmet dish, will satisfactorily allay their appetites.

Appearing anonymously as "By the Author of Nina Balatka", "Linda Tressel" was the second and last installment in Anthony Trollope's attempt to establish an alternative literary persona that could deviate from the Trollopian staples (not that the deviation was very startling; maidens urged to marry men whom they don't love are not exactly an unknown subject to our author).

Like the earlier book, "Linda" takes place in a foreign city that the author had recently visited, in this case Nuremberg, and deals with the effect of religious bigotry on love and marriage. This time, instead of violently opposing a union, the bigoted aunt is trying to promote one, and the heroine struggles to escape into either spinsterhood or the arms of a more acceptable lover than the middle-aged boor who has been picked out for her.

The personae of "Linda Tressel" - all odd ducks except for Linda herself - belong to comedy, and a work in that vein might have succeeded. Trollope chose, however, to write a tale that becomes progressively grimmer, eventually toppling the lightweight characters. The book was not a total failure. It drew praise from Henry James (who guessed the author's identity from stylistic clues) and has both lively and pathetic moments. On the whole, though, one does not, after putting it down, feel deep regret that the "alternative Trollope" had no further literary career.