Phineas Finn (1869),
The Eustace Diamonds (1873),
Phineas Redux (1874),
The Prime Minister (1876), and
The Duke's Children (1880).
It is truly remarkable to what an extent these admirable tales have fallen into oblivion. Not only do they introduce many of Trollope's most masterly characters, but they present, vividly and with knowledge, the minds and manners of the political aristocracy, the social hangers-on, the Tadpoles and Tapers of the day. Speaking generally, the social setting of the political novels is different from that of The Chronicles of Barsetshire. Indeed, it could hardly be otherwise, seeing that the whole series takes its tone from the personalities of Plantagenet Palliser and his wife Lady Glencora, who, as the stories progress and by natural course of inheritance, become the Duke and Duchess of Omnium and the greatest of English nobility. Trollope's method is not slavishly to serialize the life story of any individual character or pair of characters. All the political novels have their own clearly defined plot. They are, however, all tinged with the compelling personalities of Lady Glencora and her husband, into which Trollope threw all that he had of art and enthusiasm.
Can You Forgive Her? is a long novel, concerned primarily with the troubles of a motherless girl who breaks an engagement with an oppressively upright man in order to return to a youthful love affair with a dissipated and unscrupulous cousin. Mr. Grey, the honourable man, gets in the end the wife he wants; but Trollope does not hesitate to show fairly the preference of a high-spirited girl for an adventurous rascal, and there will be many who, when the book is finished, will regret—a little ashamedly—that virtue has ultimately triumphed. In the life story of Lady Glencora Can You Forgive Her? is important, for it pictures her newly married and literally on the verge of running away from her shy, proud, inarticulate husband, with a beautiful young reprobate, whose previous intimacy with her the reader may imagine at his discretion. The fallibility of Lady Glencora is skilfully contrasted with that of Alice Vavasor, the heroine of the book; their circumstances are so similar, and yet the young women react to them so differently!
Phineas Finn is a tale of political ambition. The hero, by whose name the book is called, is a poor Irishman who comes to seek his fortune in Parliament. The ups and downs of his career; Lady Laura Kennedy, who loves him but from family pressure marries millions; Madame Max Goesler, the fascinating, mysterious widow who rejects flattering if dubious proposals from the old Duke of Omnium, combine with a mass of other material to make a really dramatic story that is continued, and equally well continued, in Phineas Redux.
Not the least remarkable feature of the second of these two books is the hero's trial for murder. Trollope has a genius for trial scenes, and to my mind it is an open question whether that in Phineas Redux is not finer than its more celebrated predecessors in The Three Clerks and in Orley Farm.
The Eustace Diamonds turns on the personality of Lizzie Eustace, a selfish but attractive little woman who keeps possession, in the teeth of lawyers and of her late husband's relations, of certain priceless jewels to which she has no right whatever. There are two or three subplots in the story, all of good quality; but the character of Lizzie Eustace, who, for all her lying and her insincerity and her cheap smartness, is seductive and appealing, stands out as the book's essential achievement.