Essentially a comic novel, it is almost a farce. The curious interrogatory title (a bit clumsy, like Can You Forgive Her?) is finally elucidated after about a hundred pages when it is learned that the hated Marquis, who has left England to live in Italy, has (perhaps) married an Italian countess and has had a son, Lord Popenjoy. But no Englishman can trust the Italian institutions. Is he really married? Is the child legitimate? "Lord Popenjoy" is the title of the heir to the Marquis. Is he really Popenjoy?
The Dean doubts it, for if the Marquis has no legitimate son, the title will pass to his brother Lord George at his death; and then the Dean's grandson, should he have one, will be next in line. The Marquis's sibs are all skeptical, but they are hesitant to offend their brother. The Dean does not hesitate.
The story proceeds as the Marquis advances from villainy to villainy; he writes to announce the birth of his son and that he will return home. His mother, four sisters, and brother are all to be turned out and obliged to move far away from the family estate. He finally makes his appearance, one third of the way into the book, and insults them all, saving his most cutting sarcasm for the dean, whom he refers to as "that stable boy."
Mary is a credible heroine. She likes to have fun, and she is a bit indiscreet with her friend Jack de Baron, whom she unwittingly encourages to the point that he falls in love with her after she has become Lady George. And the author, who tells us a lot, never tells us so in so many words, but she surely loves him. But the author does tell us that she succeeds in her effort to come to love her husband. Halfway through the book, "She was ever trying to be in love with him, but had never yet succeeded in telling even herself that she had succeeded." But in the process of fighting off a rival—Adelaide Houghton, whom she never forgives—she becomes pregnant, and enduring a separation related to her husband's resentment of his father-in-law's interference in family affairs, she finally convinces herself that she has succeeded in learning to love her husband.
Among the Victorian customs that jar the current reader, that of the wife's duty to obedience is a note that clangs: "The husband would of course be indignant at his wife's disobedience in not having left London when ordered by him to do so."
The author indulges in some sideswipes at the movement for the rights of women. The German advocate is shown to be a money-grubber, and the American expert with the nasal twang, Dr. Olivia Q. Fleabody, "made a rapid fortune out of the proceeds of the hall." Women came twice a week to hear her preach that "a glorious era was at hand in which women would be chosen by constituencies, would wag their heads in courts of law, would buy and sell in Capel Court, and have balances at their bankers."
A woman's duty was to find a husband, and the man's duty was to make it difficult for her. All this sounds as though P. G. Wodehouse had read Trollope and had taken it a bit farther.
He did not mean to marry Guss Mildmay. He did not suppose that she thought he meant to marry her. He did not love her, and he did not believe very much in her love for him. But … [he] had run his bark on to the rock, which it had been the whole study of his navigation to avoid. He had committed the one sin which he had always declared to himself that he never would commit. This made him unhappy.
Mr. Groschut, the dean's secretary, plays Mr. Slope to the bishop. His letter to the rude Marquis is the only flattering or kind letter the Marquis receives. (The family tries to be nice to the Marquis, but they don't flatter like Mr. Groschut does.) And in the end Mr. Groschut is banished, honored only by being the subject of the book's last paragraph: "Of Mr. Groschut it is only necessary to say that he is still at Pugsty, vexing the souls of his parishioners by sabbatical denunciations."
This book could be legitimately recommended in a paraphrase of the familiar line: "If you loved Barchester Towers, you'll like Is He Popenjoy?" No, that's not strong enough. If you loved Barchester Towers, you'll really like Is He Popenjoy?.