Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Miss Mackenzie
Clean and presentable. But this impression does not come with a glossary of Trollopian terminology, nor with an editor's Introduction. For the student of the Trollope oeuvre, therefore, it is not entirely satisfying.

A classic Victorian novel
Miss Margaret Mackenzie is a lonely young woman when she receives an inheritance after the death of her brother Walter which amounts to £ 800 a year, quite a substantial allowance in the 1860s. Subsequently Margaret moves from London to Littlebath where she takes care of her niece Susanna. Being fair and wealthy, she becomes the object of desire of three gentlemen in particular: her cousin John Ball, Mr Maguire the clergyman and Mr Rubb, junior partner in the company of her brother Tom. Margaret's destiny changes abruptly when her lawyer tells her that actually Walter's money is not hers since it was given to her before Jonathan Ball's death and that it belongs to John Ball.
Mr Trollope casts a critical glance at all the intricacies of the Victorian era: money, social position, marriage and business. Nevertheless, the novel is a suspenseful family saga and the plot is so cleverly constructed that it surpasses many a story written in the 21st century.

an overlooked small gem
This is an overlooked small gem of a novel. Margaret Mackenzie is a spinster in her mid-thirties who receives a large inheritance when her brother dies and must then deal with what comes with the inheritance, including several suitors, who may or may not simply be after her money. Trollope depicts Miss Mackenzie with his usual unsparing honesty, and although in his autobiography he called her "a very unattractive old maid", her modesty, charity, and dignity endear her to the reader and make the rather everyday plot engrossing.

Good for today, so-so for Trollope!
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 hisother novels are far superior. The book concerns the trials andtribulations of Miss MacKenzie after she inherits a fortune and then loosesit. We see how her friends, neighbors, and male paramours react to her asher status in life changes. It's, as all Trollope books, enjoyable, but notone of his better books.

Trollope's gentle satire wins through here.
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 youessentially what will happen next, and he consistently drives plot towardsa theme.Yet Trollope, a consummate Victorian, seems intrinsically modernwhereas many more "literarily correct" modern humorists growantique in a week or less.The secret, of course, is character, an eye andan ear for class distinctions, and a skewering wit combined with tremendousfellow-feeling for the foibles of his characters.Miss MacKenzie containsmuch of Trollope at his best--the title character is a beautifully observedgenteel poor spinster-to-be suddenly visited with the misfortune offortune. The author assiduously exposes flaw after flaw in Miss MacKenzieand her social milieu, and yet we like her better for the harsh light.Inthis world of tremendous unkindness, it is nice to remember that one can behonest without being brutal.Trollope, a writer of genial works of whimsy,brings the quiet honesty of literary fiction home safely here. ... Read more

Product Description
The book centers on the character of Mr. Harding, a clergyman of great personal integrity, whose charitable income far exceeds the purpose for which it was intended. Young John Bold turns his reforming zeal to exposing what he considers to be an abuse of privilege, despite being in love with Mr. Harding's daughter Eleanor. The novel was highly topical as a case regarding the misapplication of church funds was the scandalous subject of contemporary debate. But Trollope uses this specific case to explore and illuminate the universal complexities of human motivation and social morality. This edition includes an introduction and notes by David Skilton and illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Not for everyone
I decided to read this book after watching the BBC version, staring Donald Pleasence, The Barchester Chronicles.The story was charming, witty and pointed in its approach to the hierarchy of the 19th century Anglican Church.

The book, while interesting, is not for everyone.If you like your literature to be concise and to the point, you'll probably find this a laborious read.Like poetry, literature--especially literature through time--has a sort of cadence, a rhythm and meter that is distinctive for its period, which takes a little getting used to when first encountered.Probably nothing makes it more apparent than reading a work like "The Warden" for the first time.Reading "Sherlock Holmes" by Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Four Novels and Four Short Story Collections in One Volume, or "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin, Pride And Prejudice, will also do so.All of these 19th century authors share a similar style of very wordy prose.They "tell" rather than "show," as a writing class instructor once noted to me some time ago.

For those of you who enjoy either Sherlock or Pride, Trollope's "The Warden" will be an engaging read.You will have to get into the author's stride with respect to his prose, but once given the chance, he will definitely entertain.For those who really can't get into the story this way, I'd suggest the BBC version.Much of the dialogue is pure Trollope, while much of the descriptive verbiage is absent because the set, costume, and mannerisms of the characters carry it nonverbally for you.

For those of you who need their cinematic action to be quick, short and to the point, even the BBC version will probably bore you too. The entire action of the piece is based on personal interactions between the characters and on the growing experience of the viewer with the individual characters and their personalities.In short, it's like getting to know your neighbors; if you're a 1st impressions kind of person, you won't want to waste time with this version either.If you enjoy getting to know people over time and enjoy old friends, you'll love it.

A Necessary Start
The series of twelve novels that Anthony Trollope wrote about the fictional county of Barchester, England and its inhabitants (I'm including the Palliser books in that calculation) are among the greatest, most entertaining achievements of English literature.And here's where it all begins: "The Warden," a short, sweet tale of a clergyman's burgeoning social conscience, and the uproar that causes in a small, rural community.Perhaps this makes "The Warden" sound more dry than it is; it's actually an amusing, warm-hearted read.Be forewarned that it's not Trollope's best (he's still feeling his way both as a writer and a social critic), but it's the novel that brought him to public attention, and it's essential reading for those starting the series.In particular, it sets up conflicts and personal dynamics that are key to the novel's immediate successor, the brilliant and hilarious "Barchester Towers."Were "The Warden" to exist on its own, it could be dismissed as a slight, second-rate work; as a prelude to what follows, it's important and indispensible.

A Carefully Written, Moving Novel
The Warden develops carefully and slower than many of the modern novels I have read. I was tempted to abandon it after a couple of chapters...Thank goodness I stuck with it.I ended up completing the latter half of the book in a few days because by then I was fully intrigued and encaptured by the story.

It seems like not much can happen in this book after the main characters are introduced and all seems well. What does happen is intense and emotional.Trollope illustrates the significance of relationships to people and how detrimental it can be when friendships are damaged.

Trollope excels at developing the characters and the plot which as benign as it seems delivers a staggering blow to readers.

This is a book that was enjoyable, but I think its greatest value is in the reflection it inspires.I look forward to continuing to read the Trollope books.

Craig Stephans, author of Shakespeare On Spirituality: Life-Changing Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays

Not for profit
Septimus Hardy is that rarity - an honest, "disinterested", Church of England cleric. For 10 years, he has held the living as warden at a charitable "hospital", founded centuries ago for impoverished but worthy tradesmen. When in the interest of reform, John Bold, Warden Hardy's daughter's suitor, brings a suit against the church for diverting alms to the clergy rather than the poor.

All manner of trouble arises when Mr. Hardy's conscience clashes with the plans of his Arch Deacon, who also happens to be his son-in-law. Employing subtle (and sometimes not) satire to age old conflicts betweenright/wrong, church/society, rich/poor, law/common sense, Trollope prods his readers to consider the nature of charity and society's obligations to the less fortunate. Hepresents both sides with fairness, providing no easy solution to a problem that is always with us. Thought provoking and still topical, though originally published in 1855.

"He was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so."
For many years, the kindly and unambitious Rev. Septimus Harding has been warden of Hiram's Hospital, a residence for poor men who have nowhere else to go, a place where they may live comfortably, get a small stipend from the estate of Mr. Hiram, and live out their lives in peace.The warden of Hiram's Hospital has also been living at peace, until John Bold, a young reformer, questions why Mr. Harding, as warden, gets eight hundred pounds a year for accepting the title of warden, which does not require him to do much else.The bedesmen living in the hospital get only shillings, and Bold wonders whether the real intentions of Hiram's bequest to establish the hospital, more than four hundred years ago, are being honored in the present.

In this first of the Barsetshire Chronicles, published in 1855, Trollope establishes the gently satiric tone and mood which pervade the series.Here he focuses on the church, its clergymen, and their roles in society, showing Rev. Harding to be a man of honor and trust (though a bit too comfortable and unimaginative to ask the hard questions) and contrasting him with Archdeacon Grantly, his son-in-law, who enjoys the power and perks of his position and feels that the world owes him whatever what he can get from it.The stultifying church hierarchy sees its role as almost royal, above the fray and dedicated to sustaining itself.

The conflict which arises when John Bold and Tom Towers, an arrogant newspaperman, become allies in the investigation of the warden's position becomes even stronger when some of the bedesmen are encouraged to demand one hundred pounds a year.Rev. Harding becomes the humiliated subject of editorials, pamphlets, and even a novel showing the "abuses" of his power.Dr. Pessimist Anticant, the pamphleteer, is thought to be a parody of Thomas Carlyle, and the novelist, Mr. Popular Sentiment, is thought to be Charles Dickens.The fact that John Bold, who started it all, is in love with the warden's daughter creates further complications.

Trollope is a delightful writer whose style is to entertain the reader while raising some thoughtful questions.Though he takes his writing seriously and creates memorable characters behaving, as a rule, like real people, he does not take himself seriously, nor does he feel the need to be a social reformer.His humor and amiability give a freshness to novels like this one, which, despite its age, is amusing and perceptive.His later novels, like The Way We Live Now, are far more complex--but just as much fun.n Mary Whipple

Barchester Towers
Doctor Thorne (Barsetshire Novels)
Framley Parsonage

... Read more

Product Description
Louis Trevelyan unjustly accuses his wife Emily of a liaison with a friend of her father's. As his suspicion deepens into madness, Trollope gives a psychological study in which Louis' obsessive delirium is comparable to the tormented figure of Othello, tragically flawed by self-deception. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

correction and praise of Trollope
The book is by Anthony Trollope, not John Sutherland.Brilliant study of pathological jealousy, with many charms besides.

Trollope's answer to Shakespeare's Othello
Anthony Trollope considered He Knew He Was Right not to be a particular success, in fact he considered that he had failed in that he was unable to make a sympathetic central character, that of the increasingly jealous, crazed Louis Trevelyan. It is less a story about sexual jealousy as it is about a certain sort of Victorian idea that a man was owed complete obedience and submission on the part of his wife. Starting from this presupposition, the anti-hero of the novel builds a case against his wife that has far-reaching and disastrous results.

All Trollope novels are in a sense about marriages: their common dramatic end is at the wedding altar. He Knew He Was Right is interesting in that its central story is about the collapse of a marriage, and the sub-plots revolve around that drama. As much as I respect Trollope, I think he was wrong about this book. It is extremely engrossing, often very dramatic, even harrowing, and yet much of it is also charming and downright funny. He was such a master of situation and dialog, and this novel was written in the late 1860s when he was at the top of his game. I might not put it among my favorite Trollope books, such as the Barchester series or The Way We Live Now, but you couldn't go wrong here.

The Penguin edition has a wonderful introduction and excellent notes.

Beware of "free shipping"
I ordered several books, qualifying for Amazon's "free shipping." I waited at least five weeks for my order to arrive. Don't know about you, but in today's competitive online market, that's a DEAL BUSTER for me.

Exceptionally contemporary
A fan once wrote that this was one of her favorite novels and said "There is nothing wrong with this book," which I thought a backhanded compliment.After several months, I ordered the book anyway.

I enjoyed it immensely.It is a classic of the first degree.Who would have thought Trollope was 'laugh-out-loud' like this?Trollope and George Eliot are to Jane Austen as Dos Passos is to Doctorow: they tells similar stories with much greater texture and commentary - and at greater length.Neither is necessarily better: my wife greatly prefers the rich interior point of view of Austen, while I prefer Trollope and Eliot and Dos Passos.But life is richer for having read them all.

The beauties of conventional decency, and what lurks beneath
Trollope is the ideal Victorian, celebrating the conventional, but with a thoroughly worldly appreciation of the darker side of human psychology that's best kept bottled up. In this novel, he promotes over and over -- with not just one but three admirable ingenues who live happily ever after -- the virtues of romantic marriage, while putting his fourth heroine in a catastrophic union where stubborn self-assertion leads to separation, irrational jealousy, parental kidnaping and tragic dissolution. All unfolds with Trollope's characteristic insightful, gentle and funny writing style. The novel's 822 pages turn as easily as an entertainment, but with enough moral gravitas and incisive description of the world of the 1860's to keep the reader thinking and pondering amidst the pleasure of reading this wonderful novel. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

worth the effort
I bought this book on my kindle after seeing it referenced in a newsmagazine.I am new to Trollope but am quickly becoming a devoted fan.His writing is Dickens-like, but easier to read.This work is about a family with a good standing in society but little money.The son is the typical ner-do-well; the mother feels an urgent need to advance him in society by finding him a rich wife. Her efforts lead them to characters whose whose history is just a bit too mysterious; whose worth is substantial but superficial; and whose standing is society is questionable. Fans of English literature will enjoy this book and it's commentary on society, then and now.

No Way To Write - Then or Now
This is the most boring, unpoetic book I have managed to trudge through in some time.Published in 1875, it is generally esteemed as Anthony Trollope's magnum opus.I truly cringe - based on this assessment - to imagine what it might be like to plough through Trollope's myriad other novels. The title of the book has, of course, become a modern-day catchphrase, though it has become so generalised that one scarcely knows what is meant by it now.

Lest the reader of this review think that mine is simply a modern sensibility not attuned to Victorian virtues and thus unable to appreciate Trollope's plodding, soporific prose, here is what the New York Times (whose archives are thoroughly searchable back to 1851) had to say about Trollope in the paper's 1876 review of this book:

"We know of few books which are equal to his in the wealth of passages admirably adapted to be skipped; and probably no writer who is popularly read is so much skipped as he is."

I'm very much in accord with this Victorian era reviewer and these readers; and though I forced myself not to skip anything, it was trying, to put it mildly.Trollope's fundamental problem is of a piece with what irks one about the self-denying Stoic hero, of sorts, of this book, Rodger Carbury.Here are Trollope's own words describing his alter ego:

"The man had no poetry about him.He did not even care for romance.All the outside belongings of love which are so pleasant to many men and which to many women afford the one sweetness in life which they really relish, were nothing to him."

Of course, he's a saint compared to the loathsome stock-jobber, Mr. Melmotte, the focal point of this tome, and whom many present-day writers compare to Bernie Madoff. But he and this book are a crashing bore all the same. It's all very well to refer to the title of this book in order to seem erudite, cultured and knowledgeable about history at cocktail parties.But just try reading the actual book!You'll find yourself in the same spot as many a Victorian reader did - with your eyelids drooping over the dense prose and wooden characters and storylines.

A 19th Century Tale that Could Have Taken Place in 2008
I bought this book based on a Newsweek recommended reading list. It concerns greed, pursuit of position, and fraud in late 19th century London, but most of the story line reads as if it could have been set in 2008, during the financial scandals on Wall Street. There is even a Bernard Madoff type figure in the story. There is also a BBC/PBS adaptation available on DVD. It is also excellent, but necessarily lacks some of the richness of detail that we find in the book. I don't think of Tollope's books as page turners, but I got to a point where I didn't want to put this down. Perhaps in a few years the material won't seem as fresh, but right now it's very timely. ... Read more

Product Description
Plantaganet Palliser, Prime Minister of England - a man of power and prestige, with all the breeding and inherited wealth that goes with it - is appalled at the inexorable rise of Ferdinand Lopez. An exotic impostor, seemingly from nowhere, Lopez has society at his feet, while well-connected ladies vie with each other to exert influence on his behalf - even Palliser's own wife, Lady Glencora. But when the interloper makes a socially advantageous marriage, Palliser must decide whether to stand by his wife's support for Lopez in a by-election or leave him to face exposure as a fortune-hunting adventurer. A novel of social, sexual and domestic politics, The Prime Minister raises one of the most enduring questions in government - whether a morally scrupulous gentleman can make an effective leader. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Augean stables waiting for the cleaner
Before politicians are admitted to new offices, few of them would not announce that they want to clean the stables. In practice, things go differently. We see this all the time.

Why do I read Trollope? Simply because he is there; or rather, more specifically, I found the Penguin edition of the `Prime Minister' in the `still to be read' section of my shelf. I took it on a trip. It is an amusing way to spend time. Who reads Trollope? People with lots of time, I would guess. People who are not in a rush, who enjoy the chuckle and the insight, and who find the mysteries of the English caste system and legal structure worth a few or more hours. And those who think that British politics are hilarious.

`It is easy for most of us to stay away from stealing and picking, as long as the clear consequence is prison diet and garments. But when silks and satins come of it, the net result of honesty does not seem so secure.' Right, isn't it?

Of course, this book is not about Gordon Brown; it is about Plantagenet Palliser of the Palliser clan, aka the Duke of Omnium, and of the novel series about the Pallisers.The Duke has made it to the position of prime minister, but not all aristocrats look at this achievement with much respect. It is more like a disturbance in a life. This is the 5th of 6 volumes, and I have no idea why I bought it, back in the 90s. Shouldn't I have started with number 1 of the series? It seems that is not strictly necessary for enjoyment. (The product page here says that this is the best of the six.)

Trollope was a masterful observer of people from certain social strata. His knowledge did not, it seems, encompass the whole width of society, but stayed with `society'. That doesn't make him a snob; it just makes him honestly incomplete. Who can claim to be otherwise, honestly?
`When one man is a peer and another a ploughman, one doesn't find fault with the ploughman, but one also doesn't invite him to dinner.'

If I have to find a fault with Trollope, it is his explicitness. He explains everything to us. That makes things easier, but also takes away the freedom of interpretation. It makes the book comfortable but one-dimensional. No space for post-modernist disagreements.
On the positive side: he uses no coincidences, whether tragic or lucky. His plot relies on psychology and life experience. Trollope is possibly the least romantic of all Victorians. (Admittedly my basis for generalization is not broad.)

The plot has a love story and a political story, interwoven: we start with a young would-be parvenu of questionable ancestry who tries to marry the daughter of a proper gentleman. Since the young man's father was Portuguese instead of English, and since the young man works for a living (in the City, how unrespectable!), he is easily dismissible (isn't it likely that he is Jewish on top of it?). This father wants to see his daughter married into a proper family.
Trollope takes care to make us agree. The young man is not to be trusted. Luckily the daughter is a proper Victorian lady without vulgar notions. She will obey, but then again, she is actually positively inclined...
Clearly, the first reactions are just the initial salvos in a protracted battle.

The political side of the plot focuses on the Duke and his wife, a latter day Lady Macbeth, the schemer with grand ambitions. He is a man of principles and patriotism. He is up against the corroding influences of professional politics. He doesn't feel adequate for the PM job. We follow him through his small political wars and somehow I started remembering that contemporary events are not all that different...
It is amazing how little about actual political issues is needed to tell a good story about political mechanisms. Sure, parties are named, but what are they arguing about? Irrelevant, it seems.
The only subject that seems to play a major part is that of home rule for Ireland, but also not in the sense of analyzing the problems, rather to parade the various commonplaces of the time in front of us.

I have not regretted picking this big thing (700 pages!) from my shelf. I think I will go for more of the series, they are good for travel luggage, as they are compact and one can spend some time with them, ie no need to pack half a library.

The Pallisers: Front & Center
In this, the fifth of his Palliser Chronicles, Anthony Trollope moves Plantagenet Palliser and his vivacious wife, Glencora, squarely to the forefront.Oddly, for me, this leads to one of his weakest efforts.Of course, second-rate Trollope is better than most other writer's best efforts, so it's somewhat churlish to complain.But I wish I believed a little more in the plotting here.Palliser's ascendency to the Prime Ministership seems a stretch, and the accompanying storyline about the vile Ferdinand Lopez and his marital difficulties are not particularly involving.True, when the two threads combine, it produces some interesting dilemmas for all concerned (culminating in a dramatic and evocative death), but not enough to engage me as fully as I would have hoped.To be honest, I had a hard time getting through "The Prime Minister," which has never happened before when I've read this author.As a piece of the Palliser puzzle, this is a vital entry in the canon...just not its best.

The Prime Minister: The fifth and penultimate Palliser novel by Trollope is a foray into high level British politics and love
Anthony Trollope's Palliser series about politicians is second only in popularity to his earlier Barsetshire novels dealing with the clergy. "The Prime Minister" is a long but engaging novel written in 1874. The book holds up well over time and is worthy of rereading.
The major players on the stage of this 700 page three decker are:
a. Plantagent Palliser the sober, stolid and dull man of honor is elected Prime Minister of Great Britain in a coalition government. This government holds office for three years. Palliser does a good but unspectacular job. He is a taciturn, withdrawn man leading one to wonder why he ever entered the hurly-burly mudslinging of politics. His premiership is shaken by the allegation from the crude news maven the reprehensible Mr. Slide that Palliser paid the election fees of Ferdinand Lopez in the Silverbridge election. It is discovered that the evil Lopez was a favorite of Lady Glencora the Duke's impetuous wife.
b. Glencora Palliser: Glencora believes the key to a good premiership for her husband is to wine and dine parliamentarians. She spends a fortune doing this putting up with such dreadfuls as Sir Timothy Beeswax. She is comforted by her good friend Mrs. Marie Finn who is married to Phineas Finn a member of Parliament from Ireland. Despite all of her faults we come to love Lady Glencora for her exuberance and liveliness in a novel which could all to quickly turn to dull staidness.
In addition to the political plot which some American readers may find a bore there is a juicy and tragic love story featuring:
a. Emily Wharton. She rejects her longtime lover Arthur Fletcher who comes from an old Hertfordshire family she has known since her youth. She is sheltered by her John Bull/Archie Bunker father old barrister Mr. Abel Wharton. Emily gives up a good life to become the wife of the bounder Mr. Ferdinand Lopez.
b. Ferdinand Lopez is the father of a Portuguese father and a British mother. He is handsome; well educated and speaks several languages. He is also one of the most odious of all of Trollope's villians!!!! Lopez weds Emily believing she will inherit a large fortune; he lives at her father's home; he borrows large sums of money from the Wharton father and Lady Glencora Palliser. He is defeated in his campaign for the Silverbridge seat in Parliament by Emily's former flame the honorable Arthur Fletcher! Lopez rudely talks to his wife Emily, uses her to wheedle money out of her father and even seeks an affair with the notorious Lady Eustace! His wild dream of running a mine in Guatemala comes a cropper; he commits suicide by falling in front of a train! This is a plot device allowing Emily to be free for the arms of her true lover Arthur Fletcher. The novel ends with Arthur and Emily pledged to one another to become a wedded couple in a year's time.
"The Prime Minister" is one of the finest political novels in the English language. The love story of Emily and Arthur is touching. We cryand laugh and think. This is another glittering jewel in the crown of fiction worn by a master of the art. Enjoy this Trollope novel and enjoy a world long ago and far away that still has something to say about the human heart and head. Excellent!

Morality
I have little to add to what others have already said about The Prime Minister. Ferdinand Lopez is a vile man. He seems to have no sense at all of moral right and wrong - totally oblivious to it. Palliser (the Prime Minister) on the other hand, is invariably fair, considerate, just, and so on. His defects are not moral. He is overly sensitive to criticism:`Thin skinned'as we are told over and over again. He tends to hide his feelings, and withdraw into himself - things like that. Trollope's depiction of the relationship between Palliser and his wife is wonderful, very perceptive.

Trollope was, I think, a racist. In addition, he looks down on Jews in general, not just Lopez. Furthermore he holds that women should, if possible, worship their husbands as `gods.' (So far as I know, he nowhere says that husbands should worship their wives as goddesses.) The racism is explicit in his account of his travels in the Caribbean. Of course in this regard he was only endorsing the attitudes of his time and class in England.

I would rank The Prime Ministeramong the top three of the 15 or so Trollop novels I've read.

Outsiders and Insiders
This book seemed to me to represent a return to form after the previous two rather plodding entries in the Palliser Saga. Trollope's depiction of relations between the intensely private Plantagenet and the injudiciously extrovert Glencora is a dead-on accurate portrait of middle-class marriage, and the fact that P. is made prime minister gives Trollope the chance to show interaction between the personal and political spheres in a way that I found absolutely fascinating.

The most intriguing part of the book, though, are the sections that deal with Ferdinand Lopez, a Jewish "outsider" to upper class London society, toward whom Trollope seems to have had a fascinatingly unsettled and ambivalent attitude. Is he a tragic figure whose relatively small-scale vices only bring about his downfall because he is trying to gain entry into a self-enclosed world of unearned privilege, or is he really the unscrupulous "adventurer" that the other characters all regard him as being? The fact that the author himself never really seems to have made up his own mind on this topic is perhaps a weakness in some sense, but it shows that Trollope was able to retain at least some of his intellectual honesty as the curious, inquisitive liberalism of his youth began to give way to the slightly paranoid toryism of his old age. ... Read more

Product Description
An excerpt:

The gardens of Clavering Park were removed some three hundred yards from the large, square, sombre-looking stone mansion which was the country-house of Sir Hugh Clavering, the eleventh baronet of that name; and in these gardens, which had but little of beauty to recommend them, I will introduce my readers to two of the personages with whom I wish to make them acquainted in the following story. It was now the end of August, and the parterres, beds, and bits of lawn were dry, disfigured, and almost ugly, from the effects of a long drought. In gardens to which care and labor are given abundantly, flower-beds will be pretty, and grass will be green, let the weather be what it may; but care and labor were but scantily bestowed on the Clavering Gardens, and everything was yellow, adust, harsh, and dry. Over the burnt turf toward a gate that led to the house, a lady was walking, and by her side there walked a gentleman.

"You are going in, then, Miss Brabazon," said the gentleman, and it was very manifest from his tone that he intended to convey some deep reproach in his words.

"Of course I am going in," said the lady. "You asked me to walk with you, and I refused. You have now waylaid me, and therefore I shall escape--unless I am prevented by violence." As she spoke she stood still for a moment, and looked into his face with a smile which seemed to indicate that if such violence were used, within rational bounds, she would not feel herself driven to great danger.

But though she might be inclined to be playful, he was by no means in that mood. "And why did you refuse me when I asked you?" said he. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Victorian three way?
This is one of the less known Trollope titles but one you won't want to miss.It starts off with two star crossed young lovers (shock!) who must part in order that the girl can marry an older, richer, titled man.That union soon ends in tears and the young man, Harry Clavering, being one of those types who can't be alone, has already found a young woman to assuage his loneliness and has engaged himself to her.

When Harry learns that his first love, Lady Ongar, has been made a widow though with a slight taint to her name, he's already in too deep with his new love to do anything productive about it.Sir Hugh Clavering is the head of his family and he's married to Lady Ongar's sister, Hermione.Naturally when Hermione asks Harry to help Lady Ongar, who's returning from abroad, find lodgings and get settled back in London Harry is obligated to accommodate.The sparks are still there for both of them and Harry somehow never manages to mention he's engaged elsewhere.Drama ensues.

At Sir Hugh's insistence his bumbling perpetually single brother Archie throws his hat into the Lady Ongar marriage and fortune ring and provides some comic relief as he interacts with Lady Ongar's Polish/French/Russian spy compatriot Sophie who's followed her to London to sponge off her and anyone else who happens into her path with a few pounds.There are several other subplots, most notably with Harry's sister Fanny and his father's curate Mr. Saul, but the main drama plays out with the trio of Harry and both his ex-fiancé, Lady Ongar, and his current fiancé, the pure, good, trusting Florence.Though Harry tries valiantly to be worthy of Florence he mostly dodges and hides trying to figure out how to have both women's regard.Since this is Trollope you'll probably guess that all turns out for (almost) the best.

Tension?Suspense?From Trollope?
Although I enjoy an occasional Trollope, I am not a huge fan as I find most of his writing to be overlong and repetitive.But "The Claverings" is easily my Trollope favorite so far.I was consistently eager to return to the story each evening to learn the resolution of the previous evening's suspenseful situation, and throughout there was just enough tension to have me turning pages (if that's what one does on a Kindle) quickly. Highly recommended!

one of Trollope's best
If you like most of Anthony Trollope's books, you'll like this one a lot. It's one of my favorites. However, it's hard to read because the printing is poor and very small. Still, I found it worth the effort.

So, you think you've read everything Trollope has to offer...
...I know I did.After being set onto Phineas Finn a year or two ago, I have been unable to stop a frantic Trollope binge-reading.I thought, however, that I had (unfortunately) read everything Trollope had written, but stumbled across this one.

It is absolutely wonderful.I'm not sure anyone does love triangles as well as Trollope, and The Claverings offers one of his best yet (Harry, Julia, and Florence).Trollope sets it up such that the reader isn't quite sure where Harry's heart should lie in the end (I, for one, wanted Trollope to pull a Phineas Redux and have Harry end up with "Madame Max."But he doesn't, for many good reasons, none of which will make you feel that it couldn't have ended up well with...well, I won't give away the story.)

Needless to say, The Claverings is more than a love story, in classic Trollope fashion.At its most profound, it's a difficult soul-searching of what matters most in life, and how best to get there.And, unlike many of Trollope's other works, he doesn't leave a clear safety net under his characters - you really aren't sure things are going to work out, after all.

I would heartily recommend this to anyone who is either an old Trollope pro or someone wanting to get a taste of Trollope for the first time.Perhaps you, like me, will find the world of Trollope to be rich and worthy of a year or two of your free time.

A Male, Victorian Version of Austen's Emma
If you enjoy seeing good, but fundamentally human and weak, characters involve themselves in rather funny, socially embarrassing positions, this is a great novel for you.I'm too feminist to rate this novel a five-Trollope's accurate portrayal of the vulnerable position of women in Victorian society unsettled me.There is no powerful, outrageous woman figure like Mrs. Proudie of "Barchester Towers"-Mrs. Proudie does get a one-line mention in the novel, however!There are some wonderful minor characters here-Archie, Sophie, and Boodles are wickedly fun.If you are a Trollope addict not yet familiar with this novel, I'd say this is a sort of happy "Small House at Allington."If you are familiar with Rousseau, you will recognize the main character Julie is Trollope's variation on "Julie ou La Nouvelle Heloise" sans the premarital or adulterous sex.If all this is mumbo-jumbo to you, the book is a wonderful depiction of Victorian life featuring a love triangle. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Classic of victorian fiction, slightly dated by modern standards
This is the first of Anthony Trollope's "Chronicles of Barsetshire" novels, and his first popularly successful novel. The basic plot is that the Warden, Mr. Harding, has 1) a sinecure church position that pays him 800 pounds a year; 2) a reform-minded friend who's trying to abolish church sinecures; 3) a daughter who wants to marry the reform-minded friend; and 4) an existing son-in-law of an Archdeacon who takes defending the Rights of the Church very, very seriously.

If you like Jane Austen novels there's a good chance you'll like this, as the basic plots -- church livings, the marriage prospects of 19th-centry british gentry -- are fairly similar. Trollope's prose here is fairly light and clear, and if not quite as sharply witty as Austen's, no one else's prose is either. Trollope does spill a great deal of ink on lengthy asides to the reader, some of which paint interesting pictures of contemporary British culture and some of which modern readers may find *amazingly* skippable.

Overall, this one's a lightly pleasant example of precisely the sort of intelligent, Victorian parlor romance it's trying to be. If you like this, the next volume in sequence is Barchester Towers; it's a bit more comically satirical, somewhere in between this and P.G. Wodehouse, but almost certainly something you'll enjoy if you liked this one. ... Read more

Product Description
From the preface:

The writing of prefaces is, for the most part, work thrown away; and the writing of a preface to a novel is almost always a vain thing. Nevertheless, I am tempted to prefix a few words to this novel on its completion, not expecting that many people will read them, but desirous, in doing so, of defending myself against a charge which may possibly be made against me by the critics,--as to which I shall be unwilling to revert after it shall have been preferred.

I have introduced in the Vicar of Bullhampton the character of a girl whom I will call,--for want of a truer word that shall not in its truth be offensive,--a castaway. I have endeavoured to endow her with qualities that may create sympathy, and I have brought her back at last from degradation at least to decency. I have not married her to a wealthy lover, and I have endeavoured to explain that though there was possible to her a way out of perdition, still things could not be with her as they would have been had she not fallen.

There arises, of course, the question whether a novelist, who professes to write for the amusement of the young of both sexes, should allow himself to bring upon his stage such a character as that of Carry Brattle? It is not long since,--it is well within the memory of the author,--that the very existence of such a condition of life, as was hers, was supposed to be unknown to our sisters and daughters, and was, in truth, unknown to many of them. Whether that ignorance was good may be questioned; but that it exists no longer is beyond question. Then arises that further question,--how far the condition of such unfortunates should be made a matter of concern to the sweet young hearts of those whose delicacy and cleanliness of thought is a matter of pride to so many of us. Cannot women, who are good, pity the sufferings of the vicious, and do something perhaps to mitigate and shorten them, without contamination from the vice? It will be admitted probably by most men who have thought upon the subject that no fault among us is punished so heavily as that fault, often so light in itself but so terrible in its consequences to the less faulty of the two offenders, by which a woman falls. All her own sex is against her,--and all those of the other sex in whose veins runs the blood which she is thought to have contaminated, and who, of nature, would befriend her were her trouble any other than it is. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The Vicar of Bullhampton (Illustrated)
Trollope worked hard, escaping the memories of poverty
by producing such;this is only 1 volume of The Chronicles
of Barset.Read The Warden first to introduce
2 characters, crucial to Chronicles, Mr. Harding and Archdeacon
Grantly.Insights into Trollope's family woven into Chronicles creation.

Another Trollope Winner
Trollope is a great writer and this is among his best novels: less well knwn than Orley Fam and the Barcheter nevels, it deserves to be included with these as one of his best.

One of the master's masterpieces
As a professor of literature, and as a "common reader," I revere Tolstoy above all other novelists I have read, but I would place Trollope just below him, in company with Dickens, Balzac, Austen, and Lawrence.It did not surprize me much to learn, while reading a biography of Tolstoy,that he had a great admiration for Trollope's work.Both these men share, in my opinion, an almost Olympian view of the human beings they have created.I sometimes think these men are writers for grown-ups because they do not deal in villains.We see their characters, as they do, as from a great height, so that Trollope's Crosbie, or Tolstoy's Vronsky demand from us almost as much compassion as those whom they injure.I guess I could sum up why I respect Trollope so:he is the master of ordinary life, and --like Tolstoy--he makes it extraordinary.The clerical hero of "The Vicar of Bullhampton" is one of the extraordinary, ordinary men.You will remember him.

Insightful, realistic, a pleasure to read

Other reviewers have discussed the plot and the characters of this wonderful mid-Victorian novel; I would rather speculate about what makes the author so much a favorite of mine. Trollope led a jumbling life, traveling constantly during his career as a postal inspector in Ireland, and throughout the world thereafter. He started life as a poor boy suffering hazing at a rich boy's school, was defeated later in a run for Parliament, and ended up a loud, red-faced, hale fellow at clubs. But something developed in his character that gave him remarkable insight into both the upper and lower class mental sets of the English mind of that period. The result is that he can marvelously reproduce both the speech and the thought patterns of his men and women characters as they wrestle with problems they encounter in everyday ethical situations, both ordinary and extraordinary. Thus, we are presented with the dilemmas of a puzzled betrothed young woman, a "fallen" woman, a youth suspected of murder, an old man torn by grief, a man in the throes of unrequited love, and a fight between a country parson and a lord. Everything is explained and I found myself murmuring, "Of course. They would think that, say that, do that." Unlike Dickens, he doesn't deal in grotesques. Unlike Thackeray, he doesn't mock his creations. The novel is therefore a perfect example of the Realist school of fiction writing as well as a fine read. It doesn't cut as deeply as "The Way We Live Now," which could be a treatise on the "greed is good" generations of our recent past, nor does it have the spellbinding comedy-tragedy of the Barsetshire series, nor the political intricacies of the Palliser Series of his novels, but Trollope doesn't disappoint the attentive reader who will suspend "presentism" type judgments about the role of women or the church in the 19th century or the fact that defendants in a criminal trial could not testify. That was then. He still speaks to us now, and speaks quite clearly.

Excellent
The title of the book might lead you to refrain, since it implies that the story is about a country vicar.One wonders how exciting that might be?However, this book is probably one of Trollope's most suspenseful and well-rounded novels.You have a romance, an unrequited romance, and a young woman at the heart of it whose lack of fortune could lead her astray.Mary Lowther, visiting the vicar and her friend, his wife, receives a marriage proposal from Harry Gilmore, the local squire, who at the encouragement of the vicar, has fallen desperately in love with Mary.Mary has offered no encouragement, and despite the pressure of the vicar and his wife to accept the marriage offer, refuses.Once at home, she falls in love with a visiting relation, but because he is penniless, cannot marry him.Thus she is tossed about on the tides of marital opportunities, continually pressured by friends and family to turn to Harry Gilmore.This portion of the story is rather like a "one woman stands against the world" scene, and it is intriguing, frustrating, and ultimately inspiring as Mary finds her strength not just in love but in herself.If romance doesn't interest you, Trollope has thrown in a second storyline, one unusual in his books.A murder occurs, and the vicar sets about attempting to solve it because the suspect -- even he suspects him -- is a young man from his neighborhood who has been skirting the law and morality for some time.Add to that, we have the character of the beautiful Carry Brattle, seduced by a man outside of wedlock and then tossed out of her home by her insulted father, forced to turn to prostitution in order to eat and find shelter.Her trials and her reform, including her family's eventual forgiveness of her sins, is at once indicative of the harsh lives imposed upon women in Trollope's era and a hope for a future where women are not viewed as the property of men but as persons in their own right.Finally, the vicar does have his own story as he insults a nobleman in his parish and is thereby made an enemy, the nobleman going so far as to build a new church right up against the vicar's property as an insult to the vicar's faith and effectiveness as a man of religion.How this resolves itself is a lark!The story is exciting, and each storyline is so well intertwined that the switch from one to the other as the book progresses is smooth.Never a dull moment in this one, you'll find that from the first page, you cannot put the book down. ... Read more

Product Description
Arabella Trefoil, the beautiful anti-heroine of this novel, inspired Trollope to write of her, "I wished to express the depth of my scorn for women who run down husbands." Arabella's determination to find a rich husband is at the heart of this story and her character, though often maligned, is one of Trollope's most famous and vivid creations. ... Read more

Product Description
Arabella Trefoil, the beautiful anti-heroine of this novel, inspired Trollope to write of her, "I wished to express the depth of my scorn for women who run down husbands." Arabella's determination to find a rich husband is at the heart of this story and her character, though often maligned, is one of Trollope's most famous and vivid creations. ... Read more

Product Description
A novel in "The Penguin Trollope" series, which contains all of Trollope's novels, short stories and autobiography published in the order in which they were written. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (30)

Can you forgive them?
Can You Forgive Her? is not considered one of Trollope's best novels but will probably appeal to those who love a long novel with plenty of romantic intrigue. This isn't a novel that you can breeze through in a day. I can read a typical novel in a about a day, but this one took me a good week. If you are willing to invest the time, I don't think you will be disappointed.

The title of the book refers to Alice Vavasor, who is considered the book's main protagonist. Throughout the novel, Alice has an important decision to make. Will she marry John Grey, a respectable farmer or her cousin, George, who although unreliable, leads the exciting life Alice desperately craves.

Although the book is titled after Alice, there are two other female characters who have a simliar decison to make. There's Lady Glencor, who is married to thewealthy and powerful Plantagenet Palliser. Although Palliser, showers his wife with every luxury imaginable, his cold and distant treatment cause her to think of her old flame, Burgo Fitzgerald. There is plenty of angst in this storyline and could easily have replaced the Alice/John/George triangle as the main storyline in the book.

Last, but not least, we have Mrs Greenow, a wealthy widow who has two ardent suitors pursuing her. Mrs Greenow is considered a touch of humor in Trollope's novel. Although, she is strongly devoted to the memory of her dead husband, who was thirty years her senior, she subtlely leads her suitors on and even goes as far as pushing the date of her husband's death back a few months in order to allow her to consider the possiblity of considering her suitors.

I found the novel rich with emotion and the torment that follows when a person has made a mistake that not only people find hard to forgive, but the person cannot even forgive themselves. Contrary to many warnings to stay away from this novel, which was ridiculed by being called Can you stand her? and Can you finish it? I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure all of Trollope's novel are my cup of tea, but I definitely plan on reading The Eustace Diamonds and He Knew He Was Right.

good but long
I really do like the book but I think it would be better if it had been divided up into a series. I love the charactor of Alice. Got a little bored in some places where the discriptions got drawn out. Probably will not read again because of the length.

Vacillatrix hiking
If you plan a hiking trip of a week or so, and you will have no access to book shops during the time, and you want to carry reading matter which is sufficient for the period, and not too much either; if you look for something light enough to withstand disruptions and doesn't require strong concentration; if you want to avoid the risk that you dislike what you decided to carry: then there is a lot to be said for taking a Trollope novel. Be sure to be a male above 60 and able to stand a conservative stance without foaming at the mouth. I was quite happy with my decision to take this first volume of the Palliser series to a hike in the central Japanese mountains. It kept me amused and somehow filled my co-hikers with respect. I wonder why. Anyhow, I managed to unload the book on one of my fellow hikers who was afraid that her return flight to London might be affected by the `ash'. (I am sure the book would have served her well had she been stuck in Narita due to the European airspace shutdown, though she was not male over 60.) So I didn't even have to carry it home! (There are nearly no garbage bins in Japan; I wonder how they stay so clean.)

So, this is, as I said, number 1 of 6 Palliser novels. Plantagenet Palliser (Planty Pall to his non-friends) rises to Chancellor of the Exchequer while still not even 30. (This might qualify as a spoiler, I apologize; but no sane person would read this for suspense.)
But Planty Pall is not the main acteur here; not even the splendid Lady Glencora, his disrespectful wife, is.

Heroine in the center of attention is a pre-emancipated woman with an own head and serious troubles finding her position in a man's world. Alice is a minor relative to serious money and nobility. She is not impoverished, she is even attractive to some male sharks for her moderate means. She doesn't make up her mind easily and she is too easily influenced by her surroundings. She gets engaged to one guy, but finds him wanting. She drops him and has her next engagement with a perfect male specimen, but then finds him too boring. She returns to the first champion, who is in time unmasked as a really bad guy. In the meantime she has acquired a reputation as a jilt... Trollope was a brilliant describer of the mind of people who can't make up their minds.

`Side' issues of this central vacillation theme are: the British parliament and how to pay for getting elected to it; fox hunting; the generally low standard of male suitors in different classes of society. Alice has a widowed aunt who is given to flirtation and who is not short of male attention. This story thread is of the nature of stale comedy, which makes me deduct a star.
I had also carried something for reserve, and luckily I did, as Trollope turned out to be shorter than 12 days. But that is another story. (Just wait for the Magic Mountain!)

Rereading Trollope
When I read this novel a long time ago. I remember being annoyed by Alice Vavasor and her endless vacillating between her cousin and John Grey. My interest only perked up with the introduction of the Pallisers, Glencora and Plantagenet. I felt that about one third of the novel could be ditched to concentrate on the Pallisers.

Re-reading it recently,I am much more sympathetic to Alice than I was. Trollope is excellent in his portrayals of women -- perhaps the best of the Victorian writers. His women are real -- intelligent, passionate, feeling creatures, caught in a societal structure that gave them little outlet.

Alice is a fine example: she's clever,and aspires to do "something" with her life. She can't figure out what, however, because her society gives her absolutely no outlet other than marriage.Married to her cousin George Vavasor, she might, vicariously, be a force in politics; that is half his attraction -- the other half is that he is a bad boy and she rather likes bad boys. It's kind of a let-down when she ends up with the estimable Grey after all.

Great read, small problems.
The characters are lively and interesting.The plot and narration are a little slow, but sometimes a slower pace can be a pleasant change.The intertwining stories of three marriages and the pressures of ambition competing with love kept me interested.One problem - the introduction to this edition (Penguin Classics paperback) contains spoilers.Skip the introduction and head straight to the text if you're reading this for the first time.I can definitely see myself reading this over and over. ... Read more

Product Description
From the introduction:

"Castle Richmond" was written in 1861, long after Trollope had left Ireland. The characterization is weak, and the plot, although the author himself thought well of it, mechanical.

The value of the story is rather documentary than literary. It contains several graphic scenes descriptive of the great Irish famine. Trollope observed carefully, and on the whole impartially, though his powers of discrimination were not quite fine enough to make him an ideal annalist.

Still, such as they were, he has used them here with no inconsiderable effect. His desire to be fair has led him to lay stress in an inverse ratio to his prepossessions, and his Priest is a better man than his parson.

The best, indeed the only piece of real characterization in the book is the delineation of Abe Mollett. This unscrupulous blackmailer is put before us with real art, with something of the loving preoccupation of the hunter for his quarry. Trollope loved a rogue, and in his long portrait gallery there are several really charming ones. He did not, indeed, perceive the aesthetic value of sin--he did not perceive the esthetic value of anything,--and his analysis of human nature was not profound enough to reach the conception of sin, crime being to him the nadir of downward possibility--but he had a professional, a sort of half Scotland Yard, half master of hounds interest in a criminal. "See," he would muse, "how cunningly the creature works, now back to his earth, anon stealing an unsuspected run across country, the clever rascal"; and his ethical disapproval ever, as usual, with English critics of life, in the foreground, clearly enhanced a primitive predatory instinct not obscurely akin, a cynic might say, to those dark impulses he holds up to our reprobation. This self-realization in his fiction is one of Trollope's principal charms. Never was there a more subjective writer. Unlike Flaubert, who laid down the canon that the author should exist in his work as God in creation, to be, here or there, dimly divined but never recognized, though everywhere latent, Trollope was never weary of writing himself large in every man, woman, or child he described.

The illusion of objectivity which he so successfully achieves is due to the fact that his mind was so perfectly contented with its hereditary and circumstantial conditions, was itself so perfectly the mental equivalent of those conditions. Thus the perfection of his egotism, tight as a drum, saved him. Had it been a little less complete, he would have faltered and bungled; as it was, he had the naive certainty of a child, to whose innocent apprehension the world and self are one, and who therefore I cannot err. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Trollope fans, don't miss this one!
A powerful, powerful book! The Irish potato famine in a major player in this story, very interesting and very moving, and the main characters are very interesting and very moving as well, especially Owen Fitzgerald, a character I will never forget. This book stirred me emotionally as no other Trollope book has, and I've read many of them and loved many of them. But this one is in a class of its own. Incidentally, the father-and-son Mollett team provides some delicious humor to give the reader a break from the strong emotion produced by the telling of the potato famine. The portraits of Irish servants were wonderfully rendered--I could see and hear them, and I loved them.

Trollope is Trollope
I have spent the last 30 years collecting Trollope and trying to find his less popular works.He is my favourite author from his time, and that includes Dickens who, for all his virtues, I find maudling.This book is one of those one cannot put down, well plotted although it has all the usual Trollope landmarks - so the question is, how is it one can continue reading book after book of this author, never get tired and always be surprised?

Castle User-Unfriendly
This cheaply-produced edition is repellent to the eye and absurdly awkward to hold or manage. I returned it because of size and format.

TROLLOPE FANS - DON'T OVERLOOK THIS ONE!
I RATE THIS A 5 STAR BOOK. AS USUAL, TROLLOPE WRITES SO WELL AND HOLDS YOUR ATTENTION FROM BEGINNING TO END.

THIS IS THE TALE OF 2 MEN IN LOVE WITH THE SAME WOMAN. THE FORTUNES OF THESE 2 MEN CONSTANTLY SHIFT THROUGHOUT THE STORY DUE TO A FAMILY INHERITANCE QUESTION -WHICH FORMS THE CENTRAL MYSTERY OF THE BOOK. AND AS THEIR FORTUNES CHANGE, THE MOTHER OF THE WOMAN WHOM BOTH LOVE, CONTINUES TO INTEFEREAND ATTEMPT TO SELL HER DAUGHTER'S HEART TO THE RICHEST BIDDER.

I'VE READ A LOT OF TROLLOPE, AND I WOULD RATE THIS ONE OF HIS FINEST. THE ONLY PART OF THE BOOK THAT I FOUND NOT THAT INTERESTING, WAS THE HISTORY PERTAINING TO THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE.NEVERTHELESS, IF YOU LIKE TROLLOPE, DO READ THIS ONE!

Trollope's Romance in Ireland
I would like to start this review by emphatically agreeing with the otherreviewers of Trollope's fiction who say that this is an author that shouldbe immediately re-discovered.Here is a man who created characters that wecould not forget if we wanted.We see all sides of his creations, the goodand the bad, and there are times when you might even feel empathy for thevillians.How many authors can accomplish that?

Castle Richmond isTrollope's romance in Ireland set against the backdrop of the Great Famine. You might wonder if the famine sequences get in the way of the main plot. I certainly thought so myself until I read a brilliantly written chaptertwo-thirds of the way through the book in which one of the heroes of thestory encounters a starving mother and her children.In five paragraphsthe book takes on a whole new prespective.Suddenly our hero (andourselves) become aware that happiness is a relative thing, not somethingthat should be dictated by those we love and how much are in our purses. What an enlightening concept!Anyone who thinks that Trollope is out-datedneed only focus on what he is saying in Castle Richmond to see what a trulymodern thinker he really was.

Castle Richmond's main plot is a look attwo upper class families: the Desmonds and the Fitzgeralds.We follow themthrough their lives, watching as love is gained and love is lost.We get acomplete glimpse into the morals of these people; people who really feelthey are doing right no matter who is hurt.I was amazed that themelancholy scenes were almost better written then the happy ones.Andthere are very few writers of that age and ours that write better dialoguethan he.

I hope readers who have read Trollope's more popular works willtake the time to read this novel.Trollope obviously loved Irelandimmensely, and he need not apologize for setting his story in that country. The land, the people, the circumstances are completely displayed for us toenjoy.It is a comfort to walk in his world, through the path between theelms, through the hilly countryside.I thought more then once that I wouldgo there like a shot if it was offered to me.And that, I believe, is thetrue magic of Trollope's work. ... Read more

Product Description
"The Penguin Trollope" series contains all of Trollope's novels and collected short stories, as well as his "Autobiography". This novel blends realism with suspense in unfolding the strange case of the alleged forgery of a codicil to Sir Joseph Mason's will. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Much to admire, much to edit......
Orley Farm is characteristic of 19th century serial novels insofar as it provides the reader a great deal of enjoyment dampened by quite a bit of extraneous dross.There are numerous enjoyable plot twists, a few surprises and whole chapters that could be edited out without sacrificing a smidgeon of understanding on the part of the reader.

Main characters are often little more than caricatures of virtue or vice.This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does temper any real development or evolution on most of the protagonists' part.Masons, Ormes, Furnivals,Stackleys and Duckwraths lolligag their way toward denoument, with good, not surprisingly, triumphant over evil.It's all very pleasant, but not much more than a good read.

For me, Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?, with its stubborn battle of wills between protaganists and an ambiguous ending was far more satisfying.

(four and half stars) the dangers of re-reading one's favorite book
When I first read "Orley Farm" about 15 years ago (it was my second Trollope novel -- I've since read over 25 of them including the superb Barsetshire and Palliser series), it instantly became one of my all-time favorite books and Anthony Trollope was soon to become my favorite novelist.All of his fans know how he can create such realistic characters and make such pithy and still relevant observations about people and the upper/middle class human condition.Obviously, "Orley Farm" must be considered one of his best stand-alone novels.However, on re-reading the novel, I had a problem.

Initially, let me say that I still consider it to be a near-great book and Trollope rarely tops the number of dead-on observations he made about people here.My problem is that the major plot makes no sense, and the secondary plot is extremely frustrating to read in modern times.First, let's consider the major plot of the alleged forgery (SPOILER ALERT!!!!).Are we to really understand that a sheltered woman like Lady Mason could forge not one, but three signatures so accurately as to fool writing experts (which undoubtely would have been retained in both trials) as well as the signers themselves?The same person who apparently had never forged another signature in her life?I don't think so.

As far as the second major plot is concerned, I don't know about others, but it really started to annoy me that in 19th Century Victorian England, a man and a woman who were on the verge of getting engaged would spend virtually no time together, would not even kiss each other, and would refer to each other formally by last names until that magical post "pressure of the hand" moment when the woman finally agrees to become the man's wife.Perhaps it really was like that back then, but I can't tell you how many times I rolled my eyes in the scenes where Felix and Madeline would oh so tentatively try to express their feelings for each other.Sometimes I would literally shout out loud, "Oh for God's sake just run away to some remote part of the estate and roll in the hay a bit!!"

Still a great novel, but I liked it better on my first reading.

One of the Best Classic Authors -- Kindle Edition is Fantastic
UPDATE about the Kindle Edition -- I have the free Kindle Edition and it is excellent quality in terms of formatting, navigation, and spell-checking.I just wish that all publishers who charge significantly more for their books would put the level of effort and quality control into their electronic versions.
---------------

I love Anthony Trollope.His writing style is very readable compared to Dickens or Tolstoy.His subject matter is oriented towards subjects which are still relevant today -- politics, money and power, women's rights, relationships.His character development and imagery makes it feel like you are there.His books aren't "pretentious" but just plain good stories that you an relate to -- even though they take place in the 1800s.

One of the reasons I like them is it reinforces that many of the personal, moral, and emotional struggles you think about in your day-to-day life are exactly those that individuals have been pondering since the beginning of time.I think that we like to think that the problems we face are unique to our generation, our country (the US), our times, our families.When you read something like Orley Farm or the other Trollope books, you realize they are not and that there is still a lot to be learned from these "old guys".

In addition, if you are looking for a good "escape" and a window into how the "other half lives", Trollope novels also give you that vehicle.You can imagine yourself as part of the British Aristocracy living in a life of influence and power -- which can be a lot more interesting than being part of middle class suburbia working every day just to make enough money to pay Uncle Sam, get health insurance and hopefully have enough paid time off to afford a 1-week beach trip every year.

You expect a lot of page skipping...
with Trollope, but this one is particularly overweight.A great deal is made - by Trollope and others - about the lack of suspense, which is said to make the novel 'realistic' (versus 'sensationalist').Why?Anyway, we know from the beginning that the heroine forged the will, or rather the codicil (always a worry, the codicil).This means she spends 800 pages wallowing in terror and guilt.Others around her gradually find out; she wallows deeper and deeper with never a change of tone.This woman is TIRESOME.So is the bee in Trollope's bonnet about the adversarial legal system.As ever when nearing a political issue, Trollope uses it to bring in characters and set up oppositions, but he has no idea what to do with an idea, that is with an issue to be thoughtfully discussed.Given that this book slowly reaches a criminal trial, and that there is really no other serious plot, it becomes annoying to be told repeatedly that lawyers defend clients they don't believe in, and witnesses are badgered.The alternative hinted at - that the law should try to reach the truth - is awe-inspiringly feeble. Once the heroine is found 'not guilty', another non-surprise, and her son gives back the property fraudulently acquired, she is dropped with no gallantry into a fuzzy future in which she may, perhaps, the author hints, have one or two pleasant days.Though the book is treated by critics as a work about guilt and redemption, nobody seems redeemed, or changed in the least.How could they be, given the rigid Trollope rules of conduct.

So why did I read it?Because of the richly populated, vividly conjured Trollope world - and also of course for the exciting hunting scenes.Which in some sense is the whole book.But if the heroine is the fox - and to support this, there is a thrown off line about foxes tails resembling womens' tails (you'd have to be a Victorian male to know what THIS means) - she spends an awful long time in the woods.

Truly Classic
One of the great novels of 19th Century fiction, with characters you will learn to appreciate and understand; not the kind of sensationalist fiction of Collins or Dickens, but a real probing into morality, responsibility and compassion.Set aside your summer, or perhaps your winter in front of the fireplace...do not pass this up. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Terrible beginning
I won't say why, but the start to this book was one of the saddest things I've ever read.

But of course it is Trollope and it works out.

If you like Austen, you will like Trollope. But start at the beginning of the series otherwise you will be lost.

One of Trollope's best, that's saying a lot!
I am a huge fan of Trollope's works and have read many of his novels.I hope to read them all.In my opinion, The Duke's Children is one of his best.I admit I have never read one of his books that I didn't like but this particular story left me completely satisfied in my reading experience. ... Read more

Product Description
Anthony Trollope's novel Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, appeared in 1871.

The novel offers psychological dissection of the issues of inheritance, filial duty, noblesse oblige, gentlemanly behaviour, repentance and love, all hung upon the story of the wooing and losing of Sir Harry Hotspur's daughter (and heir to his property), Emily, by their "scamp" of a cousin (and heir to Sir Harry's baronetcy), Captain George Hotspur.

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethewaite has recently been serialised on Oneword radio. -- from Wikipedia ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Please don't reveal the major plot points of novels in your reviews.
I understand you think that anyone considering buying this must already know all about it, but that's not always the case.If you intend to spoil the novel, at least post a spoiler warning at the beginning of your review.

disappointed by ending
I simply didn't like the way this book ended, and that ruined it for me. The ending seemed unbelievable and depressing, both. It made me decide to take a break from Trollope books for a while. I've loved most of them.

Love Gone Wrong
I don't know how anyone who has read a Trollope novel cannot want to read them all. While Sir Harry Hotspur is far from Trollope's greatest work, it is a pleasant reading experience. I always think of Trollope's novels as having a certain "sweetness and light" to them; however, in his often comic marriage knot tied novels, he is also very realistic. This novel is the tale of a less successful relationship, and one all the more interesting as a result.

The story is that of Sir Harry Hotspur and his wife. They are approaching old age, and their son, the heir to the property and name has died. They now only have one living child, their daughter Emily, and she needs to be married. Because the novel is set in England, Sir Harry's title will pass to his next male relative, a young cousin, George Hotspur, but Sir Harry will leave the property to his daughter. What Sir Harry would like more than anything is to keep the property and title together. His daughter agrees with him since she has fallen in love with her cousin, George. The plan for George to marry Emily, however, becomes complicated. As Emily falls deeper in love with George, Sir Harry finds out more and more that George is a "blackamoor", one who runs around with women and cheats at cards. Emily, however, remains determined to love and marry him. She is convinced she and her parents can reform George.

Is George reformable? I will not give away the end, but I will say the novel is realistic in its treatment of the relationship--Emily is ready to worship George as a god if he can only prove himself worthy of her, and George promises to change.

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite was published in 1870, after Trollope's masterful series of Barset novels, and also while he was completing his second great series, The Palliser novels. Sir Harry Hotspur does not reach the standard of those twelve great books, but anyone who has read them will want to read further and continue in Mr. Trollope's pleasant company.

- Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of Iron Pioneers and The Queen City, available on Amazon

A failuire to reform a scoundrel
Anthony Trollope turns the tables on the usual "happy ending" in this intriguing novel and has his undaunted and faithful heroine fail miserably in bringing about the attempted reform of her disreputable husband-to-be. Sir Harry Hotspur is a wealthy baronet whose only surviving child, his daughter Emily, falls in love with her cousin George Hotspur. George is a scoundrel, though - a rogue and gambler and alcoholic swindler, all of which he admits to openly. However, Sir Harry's title will pass on to George if he and Emily should marry, as would his estates and property; it is for this continued union of title and estates that Sir Harry, out of his own pride, can't bring himself to forbid the marriage. But when the depth of George's depravity is made known to Sir Harry, he can't any longer give consent to Emily's marrying him. But the incredibly innocent and naïve Emily is convinced not only of her love for George, but of her ability to reform him. In the hands of any number of other novelists of the period that is exactly what would happen, but not in Trollope's. Harry, knowing his man, refuses to budge, and Emily, listening only to her heart, refuses to give up on him. When George finally dumps her and marries someone else, Emily dies.

The novel is simple, straight-forward, and compelling. Trollope is concerned with a couple of issues here, one being the "double standard" of the wretched male rogue being the object of Emily's compassion (no female character could ever survive a tenth of the dastardly behaviors exhibited by George). Another is Sir Harry's aristocratic pride at work in hoping to keep his title and property intact, although Trollope would never go so far as to have Sir Harry let Emily marry the blackguard just for that alone. The story moves along quickly and decidedly, and the downward spiral of events into utter sadness at the end is emotionally draining for the reader. One of Trollope's best short novels.

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

Product Description
John Caldigate has run up many debts and quarrelled with his father. In an attempt to put matters right, he has become indebted to a money-lender, and his father no longer wants him to be heir to their family home. To escape this situation, John decides to try his luck at gold-mining in Australia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good but not worthy of a rereading
Some of Trollope's books I eagerly look forward to rereading--it will be fun to read again about the outrageous Mrs. Proudie, for example, and about the slow realization of Ayala that the homely man with the great character and personality is in truth her "angel of light." But once is enough for me for John Caldigate, although I did enjoy it and do recommend it to Trollope fans. Being born in Australia myself, I was especially interested in the parts about gold mining there, and a friend of mine who is intrigued by gold mining and panning loved reading a description of that. Near the end I was obsessed with discovering how the trial came out and couldn't put the book (or, rather, my Kindle) down. The British justice system was thoroughly dealt with and was interesting. The chilling and eerily realistic portrait of Hester Bolton's mother, a puritanical religious fanatic, was fascinating to me. But it wouldn't be fun to read again about her!

Pretty good book
John Caldigate is a somewhat weak-willed man where women are concerned, as well as where gambling occurs, so he has managed to bankrupt himself as well as get himself "engaged" to several women through the course of the book, all because he can't say No when he should.Women cause him the greater trouble, but when he eventually returns home to England as a wealthy man (hard work was what made him so) and marries the woman he truly loves, his greatest troubles are now with business associates from his past and his wife's relations.What poses a disaster for himself and his wife (mother of his infant son) is a relationship he had with a "fast" woman, an actress, while he was making his fortune in Australia.She shows up in England, wanting money, and claims that she is actually John's wife.Thus John's marriage is bigamous, his son illegitmate, and his wife downfallen. The extent to which her family interferes, even to kidnapping the wife, is outrageous and dramatic.In fact, most of this book is high drama.It is very entertaining, and it resolves itself nicely, although all John's former "fiancees" do spend much time being thankful that they never married him.There is humor here, and there is tension.A very good read. ... Read more

Product Description
An excerpt:

Perhaps it was more the fault of Daniel Caldigate the father than of his son John Caldigate, that they two could not live together in comfort in the days of the young man's early youth. And yet it would have been much for both of them that such comfortable association should have been possible to them. Wherever the fault lay, or the chief fault--for probably there was some on both sides--the misfortune was so great as to bring crushing troubles upon each of them.

There were but the two of which to make a household. When John was fifteen, and had been about a year at Harrow, he lost his mother and his two little sisters almost at a blow. The two girls went first, and the poor mother, who had kept herself alive to see them die, followed them almost instantly. Then Daniel Caldigate had been alone.

And he was a man who knew how to live alone,--a just, hard, unsympathetic man,--of whom his neighbours said, with something of implied reproach, that he bore up strangely when he lost his wife and girls. This they said, because he was to be seen riding about the country, and because he was to be heard talking to the farmers and labourers as though nothing special had happened to him. It was rumoured of him, too, that he was as constant with his books as before; and he had been a man always constant with his books; and also that he had never been seen to shed a tear, or been heard to speak of those who had been taken from him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good but not worthy of a rereading
Some of Trollope's books I eagerly look forward to rereading--it will be fun to read again about the outrageous Mrs. Proudie, for example, and about the slow realization of Ayala that the homely man with the great character and personality is in truth her "angel of light." But once is enough for me for John Caldigate, although I did enjoy it and do recommend it to Trollope fans. Being born in Australia myself, I was especially interested in the parts about gold mining there, and a friend of mine who is intrigued by gold mining and panning loved reading a description of that. Near the end I was obsessed with discovering how the trial came out and couldn't put the book (or, rather, my Kindle) down. The British justice system was thoroughly dealt with and was interesting. The chilling and eerily realistic portrait of Hester Bolton's mother, a puritanical religious fanatic, was fascinating to me. But it wouldn't be fun to read again about her!

Pretty good book
John Caldigate is a somewhat weak-willed man where women are concerned, as well as where gambling occurs, so he has managed to bankrupt himself as well as get himself "engaged" to several women through the course of the book, all because he can't say No when he should.Women cause him the greater trouble, but when he eventually returns home to England as a wealthy man (hard work was what made him so) and marries the woman he truly loves, his greatest troubles are now with business associates from his past and his wife's relations.What poses a disaster for himself and his wife (mother of his infant son) is a relationship he had with a "fast" woman, an actress, while he was making his fortune in Australia.She shows up in England, wanting money, and claims that she is actually John's wife.Thus John's marriage is bigamous, his son illegitmate, and his wife downfallen. The extent to which her family interferes, even to kidnapping the wife, is outrageous and dramatic.In fact, most of this book is high drama.It is very entertaining, and it resolves itself nicely, although all John's former "fiancees" do spend much time being thankful that they never married him.There is humor here, and there is tension.A very good read. ... Read more

Product Description
An excerpt:

Mrs Amedroz, the wife of Bernard Amedroz, Esq, of Belton Castle, and mother of Charles and Clara Amedroz, died when those children were only eight and six years old, thereby subjecting them to the greatest misfortune which children born in that sphere of life can be made to suffer. And, in the case of this boy and girl, the misfortune was aggravated greatly by the peculiarities of the father's character. Mr Amedroz was not a bad man as men are held to be bad in the world's esteem. He was not vicious was not a gambler or a drunkard was not self-indulgent to a degree that brought upon him any reproach; nor was he regardless of his children. But he was an idle, thriftless man, who, at the age of sixty-seven, when the reader will first make his acquaintance, had as yet done no good in the world whatever. Indeed he had done terrible evil; for his son Charles was now dead had perished by his own hand and the state of things which had brought about this woeful event had been chiefly due to the father's neglect.

Belton Castle is a pretty country seat, standing in a small but beautifully wooded park, close under the Quantock hills in Somersetshire; and the little town of Belton clusters round the park gates. Few Englishmen know the scenery of England well, and the prettinesses of Somersetshire are among those which are the least known. But the Quantock hills are very lovely, with their rich valleys lying close among them, and their outlying moorlands running off towards Dulverton and the borders of Devonshire moorlands which are not flat, like Salisbury Plain, but are broken into ravines and deep watercourses and rugged dells hither and thither; where old oaks are standing, in which life seems to have dwindled down to the last spark; but the last spark is still there, and the old oaks give forth their scanty leaves from year to year. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great Trollope, Bad proofing
A very satisfactory Trollope novel. His skill at creating characters rarely disappoints. It appears that this edition was taken directly from the Gutenberg online book. There are many typos, punctuation errors repeats of words that become annoying after a few chapters. When reading wonderful Trollope dialogue, the reader does not want to stumble because a word is repeated two to three times in a row or fly through a sentence with no commas where needed.

beautiful story, lousy copy
A wonderful story that hooks you right out of the box...with all the usual "you are there" Trollopian visual descriptions. I think that Trollope was one of the world's great novelists and he does not disappoint here. But the publisher! As noted by other reviewers, misspellings, malapropisms and atrocious punctuation abound and really ticked me off considering the price of this book! There is totally no excuse for this slovenly editing. I think it was done by a computer program...another victim of outsourcing. Another thing is that although the listing is for Dodo press, the copy I received from Amazon was from BiblioBazaar!? So the listed publisher is probably not at fault.

Good story, crappy edition
The novel is as engaging as I expected, given my love of Trollope's other works, but this version is really terrible- I agree with the other review that the punctuation editting was incredibly distracting.At first, I thought it was an annoying stylistic affectation that most commas, dashes and colons were missing.When I was reading the first chapter, it felt, at times, as though James Joyce had stepped into Trollope's world.Then I saw several odd periods in the midst of sentences and concluded the problem was likely a crappy typesetter and inadequate quality control of the proof.I've never seen this imprint before, but I'll be avoiding it in the future.

A good story, but where was the copyeditor?!?
I'm halfway through this book, and I'm really enjoying it. HOWEVER, the edition I received seems to have been copyedited by preschoolers. Most of the commas are missing, which makes it a challenge to decipher Trollope's often long, meandering sentences. And the text is littered with misspellings. Fortunately, it only took a few chapters for me to get in the rhythm of this comma-deprived edition, and I do like the story. I'd recommend this book only if you're a real Trollope devotee.

One of my favorite Trollope novels
This Trollope novel has been one of my favorites for years, the character of Will Belton is wonderful, and the episodes between Clara and her fiance Frederick's family are priceless.There is so much to like about this story, it would be a shame for a reader to pass it up. ... Read more

Product Description
In his autobiography, Anthony Trollope called the Palliser Novels--that sprawling epic of Victorian England for which he is justly famous--"the best work of my life," adding "I think Plantagenet Palliser stands more firmly on the ground than any other personage I have created."But as sixteen years separated the first novel from the last, Trollope worried that readers would be unable to approach them as a whole."Who will even know that they should be so read?" he complained. Solving this problem in particularly splendid fashion, Oxford is now reissuing the Palliser Novels in an elegantly crafted hard-bound set--with acid-free papers and durable binding--that include the wealth of illustrations that first appeared in the Oxford Illustrated Trollope years ago.Now, a whole new generation of readers can enjoy one of nineteenth-century literature's greatest achievements.

While the novels center around the stately politician Plantagenet Palliser, the interest is less in politics than in the lively social scene Trollope creates against a Parliamentary backdrop.His keen eye for the subtleties of character and "great apprehension of the real" impressed contemporary writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Henry James, and in the Palliser Novels we find him at his very best. Between the covers of these books we meet a wonderfully rich variety of men and women, among them Alice Vavasor, whose waverings between suitors--and the resulting mess--prompted Trollope to ask Can Your Forgive Her?; the handsome Irish MP Phineas Finn, who grows to maturity as the novels progress; the beautiful enchantress Lizzie Eustace, whose scandalous diamonds are the talk of London high society; Ferdinand Lopez, the unctuous social climber; the elegant and witty Lady Glencora, Plantagenet's wife; and Palliser himself--first as a cabinet aspirant, later as Prime Minister--who is the connecting thread that holds the series together.Along the way we are also introduced to a host of amusing and sharply-drawn characters of less social status who, much like the bumpkins of Shakespeare, offer a distorting yet insightful fun-house mirror to the main action.

Nowhere else did Trollope bring to life in such compelling fashion the teeming world of Victorian society and politics, and nowhere else did he create more memorable and living characters than those who populate these six volumes.As a group the Palliser Novels provide us with the most extensive and telling expose of British life during the period of its greatest prestige. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Wow!!
When I opened my boxed set of hardbound copies, all I could say was 'wow'!!!! They were perfect in everyway. Dustjackets were in mint condition. I can't wait to dig in and start reading. Please read above description for other details.

Palliser Novels - Six Volumes in 1 slipcase /by Oxford
Pub: Published by Oxford University Press; , London; ISBN: 0192811495, 1974 & 1977 (1&2)Six Volumes in 1 slipcase.- Can You Forgive Her?, The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux, The Prime Minister, & The Duke's Children

They're called classics for a reason
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. ... Read more