Bought on the BWB for the winner/decoy of the Classics Sweepstakes. I had never heard of this author before, but I might add him to my TBR.

Congratulations and enjoy!

Thank you! This novel is quite a beast, but I expect to enjoy it. I read The Eustace Diamonds, which is another one of Trollope's Palliser series, whilst at university many years ago. Think I'd picked it up to reference certain sections for my history dissertation and liked it so much I ended up reading the whole thing.

A long read but worth it. Trollope is very much like Dickens but with a subtler tone. George Vavasor is as black-hearted a villain as they come here, but even his character has shades of grey at times. I particularly enjoyed the evolution of Plantagenet Palliser as the novel develops. He starts off as a dull as they come, but some of his later actions surprised (and pleased) me a lot.

I'm not totally sure how I felt about Alice and her eventual fate at the novel's ending. I found it quite sad in some ways. She felt to me like a character who was unfortunately unsuited to the period of history she's set in. Lady Glencora on the other hand was great fun and fabulously inappropriate at all times. But Mrs Greenow was the best character of all. She made me laugh out loud quite a few times with her endless manipulations.

Reserved for Cassandra2020 at tomorrow's meetup.

Apologies for the delay in journaling - picked up at Old Gang Meetup.

Thank you