Reading Order
Palliser NovelsPhineas Finn / Palliser Novels Reading Order
Phineas Finn (1867-69) by Anthony Trollope is the first of the six Palliser novels (also called the 'Political Novels') and the story of Phineas Finn, a young Anglo-Irish barrister who wins a parliamentary seat and enters the world of London political society, romantic opportunity, and professional ambition. The Palliser novels (Phineas Finn, Phineas Redux, The Prime Minister, The Duke's Children, Can You Forgive Her?, and The Eustace Diamonds) form a linked sequence — less about the fictional county of Barsetshire than about the London political world of the 1860s-1880s, centered on Plantagenet Palliser (later Duke of Omnium) and his wife Lady Glencora. Phineas Finn is remarkable for its portrait of the mechanics and social world of Victorian parliamentary politics and for its three female characters — Violet Effingham, Lady Laura Standish, and Mary Flood Jones — who define the romantic complications of Phineas's life.
Where to start
Can You Forgive Her? (1864)
Complete Palliser Novels Book List
Palliser Novels — Frequently Asked Questions
What order should I read the Palliser novels?
The six Palliser novels are: Can You Forgive Her? (1864), Phineas Finn (1867-69), The Eustace Diamonds (1871-73), Phineas Redux (1873-74), The Prime Minister (1875-76), and The Duke's Children (1879-80). Can You Forgive Her? introduces Plantagenet Palliser and Lady Glencora; Phineas Finn introduces the Irish politician whose story runs through two novels; The Eustace Diamonds is the most self-contained and most read as a standalone; The Prime Minister is the most politically substantial; The Duke's Children is the most emotionally mature. Reading in order gives the full development of the Palliser marriage and Lady Glencora's political role, but any of the six can be read independently.
Is the Palliser sequence primarily about politics or about character?
Both — but Trollope himself was clear that the politics was the subject and the characters were the means. He wanted to write a comprehensive portrait of English parliamentary democracy as it actually operated in the 1860s-1880s, and the Palliser novels show parties, elections, bills, careers, patronage, and the social world of Westminster with a level of procedural accuracy that reflects Trollope's own (unsuccessful) parliamentary candidacy in 1868. But the political substance is inseparable from the characters: Palliser's integrity and his difficulty with the social arts of politics, Phineas's ambition and its costs, Lady Glencora's frustrated political energy — these are both character studies and political analyses.
Who is Lady Glencora, and why is she so important?
Lady Glencora Palliser is one of the great characters in Victorian fiction — an heiress who was pushed into a suitable marriage with Plantagenet Palliser when she loved another man (Burgo Fitzgerald), who channels her frustrated energy into her husband's political career, and who eventually becomes Duchess of Omnium and one of the most powerful political hostesses in England. Her trajectory — from the young woman who almost runs away with Burgo Fitzgerald in Can You Forgive Her? to the Duchess who manages her husband's political friends in The Prime Minister — is one of the most sustained character developments in Victorian fiction. She dies between The Prime Minister and The Duke's Children, and her absence shapes the final novel as profoundly as her presence shaped the earlier ones.
Is The Eustace Diamonds the best Palliser novel for first-time readers?
The Eustace Diamonds is often recommended as the most accessible entry point to the Palliser series — it is the most self-contained, the most plot-driven, and the closest to a detective novel in its structure (the question of whether Lizzie Eustace legally owns the diamonds she refuses to return drives the first half; the question of who stole them drives the second). It can be read without any knowledge of the other Palliser novels. But readers who want the full Palliser experience should start with Can You Forgive Her?, which introduces the main characters and establishes the emotional stakes that the later novels develop.
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