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Title: The Eustace Diamonds (The Penguin English Library) by Anthony Trollope, John Sutherland, Stephen Gillers ISBN: 0-14-043041-5 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: May, 1969 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (9 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Read it IF you want full coverage of the Palliser Novels
Comment: There is a lot to like about this book. It has the usual host of colorful and varied characters that one finds in Trollope's novels. There are strong and complex women, sturdy and weak-willed men, and some wonderful set-pieces. It's a bit of a let-down after _Phineas Finn_, though, which to my mind is the greatest political novel in the English language. The previous two 'Palliser' novels having been clearly both for and about Liberals, I think that Trollope was struggling in this novel to write in a way that would both reflect and appeal to more Conservative sensibilities. So we get a lot of domestic gossip, a little mild anti-semitism, and endless lectures about the Proper way for a Gentleman to Behave to a Lady. Still, the protagonist, Lizzie Eustace, is a gem.
Rating: 4
Summary: Enjoyable, attention-grabbing, BEST READ!!
Comment: Lucy Morris is a bore. If you like Jane Austen you will like this novel! It has all the necessary ingredients to keep you turning the pages. It's fun and charming to read just like its heroine Lizzie Eustace. Trollope argues that she is no heroine at all but it is when she appears that your interest is held the longest and that you laugh the loudest. She is wicked and selfish and vain and yet childike spoiled and that's what makes her great. Lucy Morris in comparison bores you with her goodness and her morality and her prim and proper attitude which although greatly admired in 19th century women leaves her nonetheless dull and insipid in comparison to charmingly wicked Lizzie.
Rating: 5
Summary: Perfectly perfect and stunningly constructed
Comment: I have only read one Anthony Trollope novel, and I had the very good fortune of having chosen "The Eustace Diamonds." This superbly constructed novel begins with what is probably my favorite opening sentence of a novel--it's right up there with the opening sentence to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice":
"It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies--who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two--that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself." The second sentence further clarifies Lizzie's character when it goes on with, "We will tell the story of Lizzie Greystock from the beginning, but we will not dwell over it at great length, as we might do if we loved her."
Lizzie Greystock--eventually to become Lady Eustace--is a fascinating combination of cunning and foolishness, of avarice and pitiable character, of steely backbone and whimpering fits. She reminds me so very much of both Emma Bovary and Scarlett O'Hara. Her determination to keep the Eustace family diamonds entirely for herself is what sets the novel in motion, and with this rather simple device, Trollope goes on to spin out a tale which encompasses morality, greed, Victorian social mores, the corrupting influence of money, and the blindness it can cause to everything else of value.
Lizzie is contrasted, with every shade under the sun, with the sweet and constant Lucy Morris. Picture the contrast as one very much like that of Scarlett O'Hara and Melanie Wilkes. "The Eustace Diamonds" is a deliciously satisfying book, and a classic for a very good reason: despite having been written in the 19th century, what it has to say reverberates as soundly now as when Trollope first published it. I can't recommend it highly enough.
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Title: Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope, W. J. MacCormack, Bill MacCormack, Hugh Osborne ISBN: 0460874977 Publisher: Everymans Library Pub. Date: 01 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope, John C. Whale, F. S. L. Lyons, T. L. B. Huskinson ISBN: 0192835599 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: The Prime Minister (Penguin Classics) by Anthony Trollope, David Skilton ISBN: 014043349X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Can You Forgive Her (The Penguine Trollope, vol. 17) by Anthony Trollope, Stephen Wall, Stephen Wail ISBN: 0140430865 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: June, 1975 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope, Charles Mozley, Hermione Lee ISBN: 0192835386 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: January, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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