Plantagenet Palliser

The Palliser novels are six novels by Anthony Trollope. They were more commonly known (before the BBC aired a television adaptation) as the Parliamentary Novels.

The common threads throughout the series are the wealthy aristocrat and politician Plantagenet Palliser, and his wife, Lady Glencora. The plots involve British and Irish politics in varying degrees, specifically in and around Parliament. The Pallisers do not always play major roles, and in The Eustace Diamonds they merely comment on the main action.

The books are:

The series overlaps with Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire, also a series of six novels, which deal with life in the fictional county where the Palliser family is politically important.

Plantagenet Palliser is a main character in the Palliser novels. First introduced as a minor character in The Small House at Allington, one of the Barsetshire novels, Palliser is the heir presumptive to the dukedom of Omnium. Palliser is a quiet, hardworking, conscientious man whose chief ambition in life is to become Chancellor of the Exchequer. After an unwise flirtation with the married Lady Dumbello (daughter of Dr Grantly and granddaughter of the Reverend Mr Harding, characters in The Warden and Barchester Towers), he agrees to an arranged marriage with the great heiress of the day, the free-spirited, spontaneous Lady Glencora M'Cluskie. At first she finds him boring and considers running away with her other suitor, the dashing but penniless Burgo Fitzgerald. After he learns of his wife's feelings and plans Palliser persuades her to travel in Europe to cement their relationship, and is promptly offered the post of Chancellor, which he declines with great regret, since his first priority is his wife. Despite their greatly different natures, the couple settles down to a happy married life. The last book in the series, The Duke's Children, deals with the lives and loves of their three children.

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