The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

Biographical Preface outlining Trollope's life, and new Chronology.

Introduction, select bibliography, and explanatory notes by Helen Small.Explanatory Notes identify aspects of the political landscape, the social significance of Trollope's account of the geography of London, and his extensive allusions to Romantic literature, song, and matters of topical interest in the late 1860s and 1870s.Biographical Preface provides a compact biography of Anthony Trollope, and a Chronology charts his life against the major historical events of the period.Invaluable appendix outlines the political context of the Palliser novels and establishes the internal chronology of the series and the relationship between fictional and actual political events, providing a unique understanding of the series as a linked narrative.In her introduction Helen Small explores the central themes of lying and truth-telling, placing the novel within contemporary political and social debates as well as paying attention to the story, characters, and style of the novel.The Eustace Diamonds is the third in Trollope's six-volume Palliser series, the least political, and with an extraordinary heroine in the shape of Lizzie Eustace, a lying schemer in the mould of Thackeray's Becky.Hugely engaging, the novel is also a highly revealing study of Victorian Britain. Lizzie Eustace's determination to hold on to a fabulous diamond necklace entangles her in a web of deceit that involves her cousin and his fiancée in a story that is part sensation fiction, part detective novel, part political satire and part romance.

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope