The editors also provide explanatory notes, and the preface provides both a compact biography of Anthony Trollope and a Chronology charts his life against the major historical events of the period.Ībout the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. The book also includes an invaluable appendix that outlines the political context of the Palliser novels and establishes the internal chronology of the series, providing a unique understanding of the six books as a linked narrative.

The wide-ranging introduction explores the implicit politics of the novel about the nature of conservatism and liberalism in all their facets the 'woman question' autobiographical echoes gambling and the novel's interest in modernity and the United States.

It is a masterpiece of Victorian fiction.A fitting conclusion to the Palliser novels, one of the most remarkable achievements in British fiction, The Duke's Children is a touching story of love, family relationships, loyalty, and principles, following the aging Duke of Omnium as he struggles to come to terms with the loss of his vivacious wife, Lady Glencora, and the willfulness of his three children.

After a painstaking reconstruction by a team of researchers, The Duke's Children, the final book in Trollope's famed Palliser series, can now be read the way he first intended. The relationship between father and son is drawn with remarkable subtlety, and the book as a whole becomes a piercing, yet often humorous, exploration of change: how both the young and the old resist, tolerate, or embrace it.Trollope cut roughly 65,000 words, at a vulnerable moment in his career, to get the novel published, but concluded rapidly that he had made a grievous error. For Silverbridge becomes a Conservative rather than a Liberal, flouting the family tradition. He tries to compel them to do what he wants, but they are not so easy to manage.Įven when his eldest child and heir, Lord Silverbridge, makes him proud by embarking upon a political career, the Duke grapples with heartache. They vex him enormously: with school expulsions, vast gambling debts, and what he considers to be calamitous romantic attachments. He was alone in the world, and there was no one of whom he could ask a question.Īfter the sudden death of his wife, two years after he has left office as Prime Minister, the Duke of Omnium must become deeply involved with his children for the first time.

The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope