Lizzie Greystock is beautiful but selfish. Sir Florian Eustace is attracted to her and marries her. Within a few months he is dead leaving Lizzie an income and a life interest in a Scottish castle. Lizzie also has in her possession a valuable diamond necklace which the Eustace family lawyers want returned as a family heirloom. Lizzie refuses and lies to her cousin Frank, a barrister and MP, to gain his help and advice. To escape the efforts of the family lawyers to retrieve the necklace, Lizzie decides to live in Scotland, where she is joined from time to time by friends.

Having been summoned back to London to appear in court to answer why she will not restore the diamond necklace to the family lawyers, Lizzie Eustace and her friends break their journey at an inn, where the strongbox holding the diamonds is broken open. Lizzie had kept the diamonds beneath her pillow but lies to the authorities. Later, in London, the diamonds are stolen by the same thieves, with the help of Lizzie's maid, and as the police begin to unravel the mystery, Lizzie becomes more and more entangled in her lies until the truth is finally revealed.

In mid-19th century England, an era full of celebrated novelists, Anthony Trollope was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed of them all. Even today, his "Chronicles of Barsetshire" series is widely read, as are his other novels, many of which deal with criticisms of English culture at the time, from its politics to its customs and norms.

The first of Trollope's popular Barsetshire novels, set in the fictional cathedral town of Barchester, The Warden centres on the honourable cleric Septimus Harding, one of Trollope's most memorable characters. When Harding is accused of mismanaging church funds, his predicament lays bare the complexities of the Victorian world and of nineteenth-century provincial life. And, as Louis Auchincloss observes in his Introduction, "The theme of The Warden presents the kind of social problem that always fascinated Trollope: the inevitable clash of ancient privilege with modern social awareness."

Phineas Redux is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published in 1873 as a serial in The Graphic. It is the fourth of the "Palliser" series of novels and the sequel to the second book of the series, Phineas Finn.His beloved wife having died in childbirth, Phineas Finn finds Irish society and his job as a Poorhouse Inspector dull and unsatisfying after the excitement of his former career as a Member of Parliament. Back in England, the Whigs are determined to overturn the Tory majority in Parliament. As Finn had been considered the most promising of the younger set, he is encouraged to stand...

THE BERTRAMS (1859) by Anthony Trollope is an unusual novel of world travel, in addition to the typical subjects of matrimony and money, social strata, couples and relationships, by the author whose best-known work (such as the Barsetshire novels) is normally set in England. This one has the flavor of a Middle Eastern travelogue with lively Victorian commentary and satire,

Cousin Henry, first published in 1879, is perhaps the most unusual and intriguing of Trollope's shorter novels. Trollope's masterly handling of the novel's unlikely hero, a tiresome and timid coward, is notable for its insight and compassion.

Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium and former Prime Minister of England, is widowed and wracked by grief. Struggling to adapt to life without his beloved Lady Glencora, he works hard to guide and support his three adult children. Palliser soon discovers, however, that his own plans for them are very different from their desires. Sent down from university in disgrace, his two sons quickly begin to run up gambling debts. His only daughter, meanwhile, longs passionately to marry the poor son of a county squire against her father's will. But while the Duke's dearest wishes for the three are...