English Library

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY STEPHEN GILL

The Eustace Diamonds (1872) is an excellent example of Trollope’s mature art and, in Stephen Gill’s opinion, a greater work than the earlier and better-known Barsetshire novels. Reminiscent in several ways of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, the central suspense plot of The Eustace Diamonds concerns the theft and eventual discovery of the Eustace family’s heirloom, a diamond necklace. The main protagonist is the beautiful but grasping Lizzie Eustace, whose unscrupulous lies do not prevent her final exposure. This is a taut, fast-moving novel in which Trollope’s sombre vision of class structure and social change, with the diamonds as the emblem of an aristocratic family, underlies the prevailing comedy.

The cover shows a detail from ‘Only a Lock of Hair’ by Sir John Everett Millais, by permission of the Manchester City Art Galleries

The author’s portrait is by S. Lawrence, in the National Portrait Gallery

Indlægget The Eustace Diamonds, Anthony Trollope blev først udgivet på Hobby-loppeshoppen.dk.