May 2014 Guest Editor Daisy Goodwin on The Palliser Series...
Dickens is the prose stylist, but Trollope is the psychologist. His characterisation is subtle and surprising and he is particularly good at creating convincing female characters. I love Lady Glencora in the Palliser series, she is the embodiment of what today we would call ‘soft power’. I have written two novels set in the nineteenth century and I read Trollope continually as a language barometer.
The first novel in Anthony Trollope's Palliser series, Can You Forgive Her? traces the fortunes of three very different women in an exploration of whether social obligations and personal happiness can ever coincide. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Stephen Wall. Alice Vavasor cannot decide whether to marry her ambitious but violent cousin George or the upright and gentlemanly John Grey - and finds herself accepting and rejecting each of them in turn.
The first novel in Anthony Trollope's Palliser series, Can You Forgive Her? traces the fortunes of three very different women in an exploration of whether social obligations and personal happiness can ever coincide. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Stephen Wall. Alice Vavasor cannot decide whether to marry her ambitious but violent cousin George or the upright and gentlemanly John Grey - and finds herself accepting and rejecting each of them in turn.
Increasingly confused about her own feelings and unable to forgive herself for such vacillation, her situation is contrasted with that of her friend Lady Glencora - forced to marry the rising politician Plantagenet Palliser in order to prevent the worthless Burgo Fitzgerald from wasting her vast fortune. In asking his readers to pardon Alice for her transgression of the Victorian moral code, Trollope created a telling and wide-ranging account of the social world of his day.
In his introduction, Stephen Wall examines Trollope's skill in depicting the strengths and weaknesses of his characters, their behaviour and inner lives. This edition also includes notes and a bibliography.
Anthony Trollope (24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, gender issues, and conflicts of his day. Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century.
The first novel in Anthony Trollope's Palliser series, Can You Forgive Her? traces the fortunes of three very different women in an exploration of whether social obligations and personal happiness can ever coincide. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Stephen Wall.
Can You Forgive Her? features in the following genres: General Fiction, Classic fiction: general and literary, eBooks of the Month, Fiction, Recommendations
Ebook, Paperback, Hardback. £11.69, down from the £12.99 cover price. In Stock.
Can You Forgive Her? was written by Anthony Trollope and published by Penguin Classics an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd
Join our community for the latest bookish news, reading recommendations, exclusive opening extracts, author events and competitions. It\'s all free. And enter a monthly draw to win a £50 Gift Card. See past winners here
-122x200.jpg)
