The Eustace Diamonds

This is the third book in Trollope's Palliser series. It follows the drama surrounding Lady Lizzie Eustace. Lizzie Eustace married a rich Lord who gave her (so she says) a diamond necklace worth 10,000 pounds. After he dies, she insists she will not give it up as it was a gift to her, but the Eustace family insists that the diamonds belong to the estate and she can't keep them. After arguing about this for about half the book the diamonds are stolen and there is lots of drama surrounding the truth of the matter for the rest of the book.

It was interesting to me that Trollope shakes things up a bit with this book in a couple of ways. First, it is a fairly dark book. Few of the characters are particularly appealing or redeemable. In other show more Trollope books, even when characters are behaving badly, I've viewed them more as having human faults than being bad people, but in The Eustace Diamonds I didn't have that sort of sympathy for the characters. Second, he flips the general order of things by focusing on a woman who has plenty of money and is looking for a husband more as a support, protector, and mate. This was kind of nice to see rather than the more familiar story of a penniless woman needing a rich man to secure her livelihood. Unfortunately, Lizzie is so irredeemable that I couldn't give Trollope much credit for this shift.

This book also suffered a bit from not having enough side stories despite its length. I'm used to 2 or 3 stories going on in Trollope's books in addition to the main story. This book certainly had side stories, but I didn't find them all the interesting or enough of a diversion to give me a break from Lizzie Eustace.

Now, all that sounded pretty negative, but I still did enjoy the book. It just wasn't up to the high standards I set for Trollope. Taking the book on its own, I'd give it 4 stars, but in comparison to the other Trollope books I've read, it only gets 3 stars from me. show less

Rather a darker installation of the Palliser books than the previous two, with nobody very pleasant except some of our friends from earlier volumes making cameo appearances. This book is pretty much a catalog of horribles, but with one of the most interesting horribles ever written populating its pages. Lizzie Eustace, to put it bluntly, is a real piece of work, a born schemer who can't seem to stop even when she knows she's just hurting herself and those around her. No matter how much you might want to, you can't look away, either. The subplots in this one aren't quite as well-developed (or as interesting) in other Trollope novels, but both, like the main storyline, are quite discomforting.

Now, back to the adventures of our old buddy show more Phineas Finn, if the title of the next book is in any way descriptive. show less

I continued to enjoy Trollope's Palliser novels in August with the delightfully devious Lizzie Eustace, who insists that her late husband gave her as her own property the Eustace family diamonds, so that they are not a part of his estate. Her assertion creates all sorts of problems, including the fact that her fiancé finds her assertions distasteful and dishonorable enough that he no longer feels able to honor his pledge. I mostly enjoyed this, although I found it went on rather a bit long about some things. I did specifically enjoy learning the arcane bits of English common law about what does and what does not constitute an "heirloom" (the Crown jewels--possibly yes; the Eustace diamonds--definitely no), and what a widow can claim as show more her "paraphernalia" after the death of her husband. On to Phineas Redux

4 stars show less

This is a good standalone option if you don’t want to make a commitment to the whole Palliser series. Also attractive because of the extra frisson that the story of the diamonds adds to Trollope’s familiar rich and vivid environment and brilliant characterisations. Not a new observation but I am struck at how the length and depth of the book makes one feel one has lived in it, knows the characters personally, inhabits a house just a little up the street from Lizzie Eustace. Anyone working in Westminster and Whitehall today might reflect that not as many things have changed as you might expect for a book written over 150 years ago. Anyway, glorious.
Two technical notes. I do find with nineteenth century novels in particular than show more combining book and audiobook is really fruitful. The main choices here are either Timothy West for Audible or David Shaw-Parker for Naxos. Both have their strong supporters. I went for West for this book, not least because all of the Audible Trollope collection read by him is included in an Audible Plus subscription. He is fantastic.
Secondly, and less than fantastic, is the Penguin Classics Kindle edition. I bought this for the editorial material (which is very good) but yet again the OCR which appears to have been done is less than cutting edge and does not appear to have been proof read. For example there is no new character brought in about halfway through the book with the name of ‘Luanda’ (it should of course be the already introduced Lucinda Roanoke). I find this sort of sloppiness really disappointing but it gets even worse when one considers almost any random page. Just glancing would reveal that there is something seriously wrong with the treatment of apostrophes, most of which are detached from the words they should belong to. I could write a Trollopian treatise on publishers approaches as regular readers of these reviews know, but what good would it do? show less

In The Eustace Diamonds, Anthony Trollope explores the dark side of marriage in the Victorian era. Our heroine, Lizzie Eustace, is a very unlikeable young widow who, thanks to her husband's fortune, has a roof over her head and a steady income until her son comes of age and inherits everything. She is also in possession of a diamond necklace, which she insists was a gift from her husband but by law is not rightfully hers. A lawsuit is brought against her concerning the necklace, and Lizzie pouts and stamps her feet and refuses to deal with it. Her fiance, Lord Fawn, begins to regret his proposal. Meanwhile, Lizzie's cousin Frank Greystock has fallen in love with Lucy Morris, who works as a governess in the Fawn family and is Lizzie's show more complete opposite: kind, honest, and poor. Frank is a lawyer and Member of Parliament, but in the eyes of his family "needs" to marry money. In that respect, Lizzie would be a much better match and while Frank finds her attractive, he knows Lucy is the better person. When Lizzie's necklace is stolen, the pace picks up and Lizzie becomes further entrenched in selfish deceit.

I liked this book less than the earlier Palliser and Barchester novels. It was darker and lacked the satire Trollope is known for. The characters were unlikeable or boring, and familiar faces from previous books were not sufficiently present to compensate. There was also a strong anti-semitic thread involving jewelers, money-lenders, and a clergyman and while I understand the views expressed were typical of that time period, it made for unpleasant reading. But at least now I can say I'm halfway through the Palliser novels, and look forward to the next one. show less

"The Eustace Diamonds" is probably the most well-recognized of the "Palliser" novels… a series written by Anthony Trollope in the 1870’s.

The author’s theme centers on society in Victorian London where there were few wealthy people, a small middle class, vast distinction between the “haves and the have-nots”, and a commonly accepted practice of marrying for money and status. Life was not easy, especially for women. They could not hold positions of power and even if they inherited money, staying single was not an option. They needed an escort… a protector… a husband… to give them even minimal recognition, status, and credibility.

This story focuses on the greed of Lizzie Eustace and the extremes to which she goes to achieve show more wealth and local fame, and her stubborn determination to hold onto a very expensive heirloom diamond necklace that rightfully belongs to her late husband’s estate. The plot - similar to “Age of Innocence”- involves the allure of a beautiful non-conformist woman who is perceived to have “scandalous” behavior, and a respected gentleman bachelor - Lizzie’s cousin Frank - who is torn between maintaining proper social protocol and the temptations of the flirtatious seductress. Subplots involve Lizzie’s other suitors, friends, and house guests including one plain, lower class governess who is madly in love with Frank.

I liked the writing style, the satire, the humor, and the philosophical message of The Eustace Diamonds but found myself personally offended by the blatant amount of anti-Semitism. True enough that during this era in Eastern Europe, Jewish people often found themselves on the fringes of society. But in Trollope’s view, all Jewish people were villains and all villains just happened to be Jewish. He consistently describes them as “dark, shady, greasy, characters”.

This was my first experience reading Trollope and I was curious to learn if he used harsh, derogatory descriptions of Jewish people in any of his other numerous novels. Upon googling “Trollope” and “Anti-Semitism”, I was astounded to uncover 6,040 similar observations by others. I suppose the Jewish characters of his numerous novels could have merely been a reflection of upper-class British mentality during that era, but he certainly didn’t attempt to dispel the negative stereotype. Instead he exploited and capitalized on it.

Trollope may have been the most “successful, prolific, respected English Novelist of the Victorian era” (quoted from Wikipedia), but he apparently had been an embarrassingly small-minded man in terms of today’s thinking. show less

Fanny Price meets Becky Sharp in a straight fight, no holds barred. Plus a detective story à la Wilkie Collins, a cameo appearance by Lady Glencora Palliser, an attempt to introduce decimal currency a hundred years too soon, and a couple of racy Surteesian hunting sequences—plenty of fun for all. The story itself isn't as interesting as the detailing of the characters and dialogue (we have a pretty good idea how it's all going to turn out), but it's still good fun. Lizzie Eustace, the Becky-character, is especially nicely done: utterly amoral, a skilled liar, but just a fraction short of being clever enough to get everything she wants.

The political background this time isn't much (the decimal-currency saga is a very minor show more distraction), but the story of the diamonds does run along on the fringe of one of the hot topics of the time, the extent to which married women could own property in their own right. Very possibly this is the only place in English literature where the reader needs to understand the legal definition of "paraphernalia". show less