The Duke Children Anthony Trollope Books
Download As PDF : The Duke Children Anthony Trollope Books
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
The Duke Children Anthony Trollope Books
Every gardener, at least every gardener who is at all observant and alive to the growing things around him, which includes all but the most casual and obtuse of gardeners, has noticed that not all plants do everything we want them to do in just the ways and at just the times we want them to do it. The same may be said of children, as all but the most casual and obtuse of parents have similarly observed.This delightful novel explores this theme in great detail—as to children, not as to plants and gardens, of course. It is the final novel in the “Palliser” series by this great English master of the Victorian novel. He wrote not one but two magisterial series that have been popular and beloved ever since. His superb masterpiece was the “Barsetshire” series, written in the 1850s and 1860s, which explored the great theme of property and money in society. It was followed by the “Palliser” series, written in the 1860s and 1870s, which explored politics and public life. This satisfying tale crowns and concludes the latter series in a most satisfying way.
As it opens, we find the great Liberal duke of the title, recently deposed as Prime Minister and now sulking on the opposition benches in Parliament, in pathetic mourning for his recently deceased wife. The two of them were among the main characters the “Palliser” series was organized around, and we see the likable duke shattered in his great grief and adrift on a great sea of sorrow. But still more sorrows are to be poured upon his head; his three children strike off in directions he cannot have predicted and does not approve of. His daughter Mary is in love with a penniless man of no social rank, his son and ducal heir Silverbridge is in love with an American of all the impossible things, and his younger son Gerald is being sent down from Cambridge for disobedience and is busy racking up gambling debts while at Oxford.
The sorrows come think and fast for the suffering duke but he seems unable to cope with any of them in his great grief, which is compounded by his serious personal flaws of rigidity and willfulness. It is not until he begins to bend and realize that his children must be what they must be and are not his creatures to direct and control in all things, that the complicated plot of their family life begins to run smooth and straight again. It is a lesson every successful parent must learn and take to heart and—though less important—it is the same lesson every successful gardener must learn as well.
Central to most of the story is one of the 19th century’s most interesting, complicated, and unusual female characters: Lady Mabel Grex. She is brilliant, beautiful, and ambitious, but highly flawed by insincerity and manipulativeness, two very grave feminine defects in Victorian literature. Her complicated role in the propulsion of the novel’s plot lends the book much of its fascination for the modern reader. So complicated is her role that she may be read either as a feminist or an anti-feminist, or as both.
This book is a long, multi-layered, and beautifully nuanced exploration of the roles of men and women at the top of the social order in a long-vanished world, and of the ways money, virtue, and love sort themselves out as young men and women try to find each other in an enormously complicated and perilously mannered society. As a cautionary tale about parenting—or even as sound gardening advice—it could hardly be better.
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: The Duke's Children (9781354292013): Anthony Trollope: Books,Anthony Trollope,The Duke's Children,Palala Press,1354292014,HistoryGeneral,LITERARY COLLECTIONS Ancient & Classical
People also read other books :
- Feynard eBook Marc Secchia
- Screwmates edition by Kayti McGee Literature Fiction eBooks
- The Improv Comedy Musician The Ultimate Guide to Playing Music with an Improv Group Laura Hall Bob Baker 9780692753408 Books
- Modern Chess Move by Move edition by Colin Crouch Humor Entertainment eBooks
- Anne of Windy Poplars Lucy Maud Montgomery L M Montgomery 9781781391273 Books
The Duke Children Anthony Trollope Books Reviews
"The Duke's Children" of 1880 is the final installment in the sixth book of the lengthy Palliser series of Parliamentary novels by Anthony Trollope.
As the book opens we learn that Lady Glencora Palliser the feisty wife of the starchy Duke of Omnium has died. The Duke is a former Prime Minister of Great Britain. He has trouble with all three of his grown children
1. Silverbridge is the oldest boy and heir to the Duke's immense fortune. He is sent down from Oxford due to prankish and juvenile behavior. He gambles and loses thousands on racing coming under the influence of the odious Major Shifto. Silverbridge considers marrying the unstable and gloomy Lady Mabel Grex. Instead, he becomes a lover of the tart-tongued
American beauty Isabel Bocassen. The old Duke opposes this alliance since Mabel is a commoner and a Yankee. Silverbridge is favored by Isabel as she rejects the stupid Dolly Longstaff. Silverbridge wins a seat in Parliament as a Conservative member much to the disgust of the Duke who comes from a long line of Liberals. Trollope is good on discussing the differences between American and British lifestyles.
2. Gerald is the youngest son who is also a gambler and does poorly in school. He is a minor character and a mirror image of the older but no wiser Lord Silverbridge.
3. Mary is the daughter who falls in love with Frank Tregar. Frank had earlier been in love with Mabel Grex. Will Planty Pall permit this marriage? Frank is a close friend of Silverbridge who helps him win a seat in the House of Commons.
The book is very lengthy and can become tedious over who will marry whom. In the end they almost all end happily mated to a partner. The book is good but is not one of Trollope's best.
One of the brightest lights of the Palliser novels is extinguished in the first chapter with the death of the Duchess Glencora. Bereft of her vivacious influence the grieving Duke, already reserved and traditional, sinks into stodginess. Far worse than this, he is left with three young adult children whom he fails completely to understand. To say that they cause him many heartaches is to greatly understate the situation.
The eldest, heir to the title, Lord Silverbridge has already been booted out of Oxford for a silly prank. Now he goes into horse racing with questionable companions and winds up as the victim of a major scandal, which costs his father a huge sum. Next he deserts his father's choice for his bride to woo an American girl whose grandfather was a laborer.
The Duke's daughter, Mary, wants to marry a commoner, son of a country squire, a good man, but with no title and little money. The outraged Duke is adamantly opposed to such a match, but Mary vows to marry no other and is constantly miserable.
The youngest son, Gerald, who plays a relatively minor role in the novel, is forced to leave Cambridge because he was away without permission attending a race in which his brother's horse was running. Later he loses several thousand pounds in a card game.
The Duke bemoans his children's foolishness and their lack of respect for the traditions of their fathers. He pays for their mistakes, but vigorously opposes the two unwise marriages. But although he is a strict, authoritarian man, he is also a compassionate and loving father. Will he yield to the fervent desires of his rebellious offspring? The resolution of this clash of generations brings the Palliser novels to a satisfying conclusion.
As always, it is Trollope's great gift of characterization which makes THE DUKE'S CHILDREN an outstanding novel. From the outwardly firm but inwardly doubting Duke to the very sincere but frequently erring Silverbridge to the tragic Lady Mabel Grex, who has the young heir in her grasp only to let him slip away, these are well-rounded figures with whom the reader lives intimately and comes to understand thoroughly. With the perfectly depicted ambience of upper-class Victoriana as the setting, this novel is an absorbing work of genius.
Every gardener, at least every gardener who is at all observant and alive to the growing things around him, which includes all but the most casual and obtuse of gardeners, has noticed that not all plants do everything we want them to do in just the ways and at just the times we want them to do it. The same may be said of children, as all but the most casual and obtuse of parents have similarly observed.
This delightful novel explores this theme in great detail—as to children, not as to plants and gardens, of course. It is the final novel in the “Palliser” series by this great English master of the Victorian novel. He wrote not one but two magisterial series that have been popular and beloved ever since. His superb masterpiece was the “Barsetshire” series, written in the 1850s and 1860s, which explored the great theme of property and money in society. It was followed by the “Palliser” series, written in the 1860s and 1870s, which explored politics and public life. This satisfying tale crowns and concludes the latter series in a most satisfying way.
As it opens, we find the great Liberal duke of the title, recently deposed as Prime Minister and now sulking on the opposition benches in Parliament, in pathetic mourning for his recently deceased wife. The two of them were among the main characters the “Palliser” series was organized around, and we see the likable duke shattered in his great grief and adrift on a great sea of sorrow. But still more sorrows are to be poured upon his head; his three children strike off in directions he cannot have predicted and does not approve of. His daughter Mary is in love with a penniless man of no social rank, his son and ducal heir Silverbridge is in love with an American of all the impossible things, and his younger son Gerald is being sent down from Cambridge for disobedience and is busy racking up gambling debts while at Oxford.
The sorrows come think and fast for the suffering duke but he seems unable to cope with any of them in his great grief, which is compounded by his serious personal flaws of rigidity and willfulness. It is not until he begins to bend and realize that his children must be what they must be and are not his creatures to direct and control in all things, that the complicated plot of their family life begins to run smooth and straight again. It is a lesson every successful parent must learn and take to heart and—though less important—it is the same lesson every successful gardener must learn as well.
Central to most of the story is one of the 19th century’s most interesting, complicated, and unusual female characters Lady Mabel Grex. She is brilliant, beautiful, and ambitious, but highly flawed by insincerity and manipulativeness, two very grave feminine defects in Victorian literature. Her complicated role in the propulsion of the novel’s plot lends the book much of its fascination for the modern reader. So complicated is her role that she may be read either as a feminist or an anti-feminist, or as both.
This book is a long, multi-layered, and beautifully nuanced exploration of the roles of men and women at the top of the social order in a long-vanished world, and of the ways money, virtue, and love sort themselves out as young men and women try to find each other in an enormously complicated and perilously mannered society. As a cautionary tale about parenting—or even as sound gardening advice—it could hardly be better.
0 Response to "≡ [PDF] The Duke Children Anthony Trollope Books"
Post a Comment