Phineas Finn [with Biographical Introduction]
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Product Description
Product Description
The second of Trollope's Palliser novels tells of the career of a hot-blooded middle-class politician whose sexual energies bring him much success with women.
About the Author
Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was born in London to a bankrupt barrister father and a mother who, as a well-known writer, supported the family. Trollope enjoyed considerable acclaim both as a novelist and as a senior civil servant in the Post Office. He published more than forty novels and many short stories that are regarded by some as among the greatest of nineteenth-century fiction.
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First Sentence
Dr Finn, of Killaloe, in county Clare, was as well known in those parts, - the confines, that is, of the counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway, - as was the bishop himself who lived in the same town, and was as much respected. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Dr Finn, of Killaloe, in county Clare, was as well known in those parts, - the confines, that is, of the counties Clare, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway, - as was the bishop himself who lived in the same town, and was as much respected. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Handsome and charming and full of surprises,
By
This review is from: Phineas Finn: The Irish Member (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
The second novel in the Palliser's series, Phineas Finn follows the story of an Irish Member of the British Houses of Parliament from humble beginnings as the son of a doctor through the aristocratic and political salons of the mid-19th century. Finn is something of a ladies man but Trollope writes him beautifully as someone who seems to blunder accidentally into good fortune and an interest in several women without the faintest trace of self-knowledge. He is unassuming, charming, deliciously shallow and, we are told, handsome to look at. Men and women alike are taken in by him. Trollope as always slowly builds the many strands of his story from the start. But as you read on through, the narrative gathers pace until it is bowling hypnotically along with its own momentum. After the first 200 pages it becomes unputdownable as events and personalities unfold sometimes as you thought they would, and other times ending in surprise. My favourite charcter became Lord Chiltern. He grew on me every time he appeared. He's a plain-speaking, unsophisticated man who has gained a reputation for being violent and difficult but gradually I began to wonder how much was truth and how much hearsay. He is the anti-thesis of the charming but deceptive Phineas Finn. Chiltern is disliked while Finn is admired and favoured by the same people and so Trollope makes his point that what you see isn't always what you get.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charming and thought-provoking,
By
This review is from: Phineas Finn, The Irish Member (English Library) (Mass Market Paperback)
This, the second novel in Trollope's Palliser-novels, is as good as one has grown to expect from such an immaculate novelist as Trollope.
Phineas is a penniless Irishman (his father being a modest country doctor) who, against all expectations (including his own) is elected to the British Parliament. This not only introduces him to the political world of the day (which Trollope describes with great acumen and at times sarcasm) but also to London society, where Phineas soon becomes a favorite. But before long Phineas is faced with two dilemmas. In his political life he has to decide whether, having become a government employee, it is his duty to always vote as the government does or to follow his own judgement (perhaps at the cost of his job). In his private life he is torn between staying true to his Irish childhood-love and (since she is penniless too) forsaking his dreams of a grand political career, or to dump her for one of the London heiresses... The whole story is masterly told by Trollope whose style, once you've been introduced to it, is ever so charming and really like no other. I've been charmed and seduced by every single novel of his I've read so far and this one is no exception. Thoroughly recommended!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wise, elegant and entertaining,
This review is from: Phineas Finn: The Irish Member (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)
The best known of the six "Palliser" novels, "Phineas Finn" is an entertaining account of a young man's progress through the London society of the 1860s. If that sounds dull, think again: this is a book full of brilliantly observed relationships, sexual politics, Westminster politics and many wise epithets, eg 'It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.' Palliser writes clearly and brightly, with wonderful irony, carefully measured humour and none of the self-consciousness which weighs so heavily on some Dickens novels. I've so far read the first four of the Palliser novels, starting with the little-known but outstanding "Can You Forgive Her?" and found them all excellent. If you fancy something entertaining with a bit of literary substance, you can't do better.
Upside: revelatory. Downside: quite long.
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