'No-one probably, ever felt himself to be more alone in the
world than our old friend, the Duke of Omnium, when the Duchess
died.' Her death leaves to the Duke the care of his three
wilful children and to the children the continuing social education
of their father. The eldest, Lord Silverbridge, has been sent down
from Oxford; Lord Gerald Palliser is doing indifferently well at
Cambridge; and Lady Mary Palliser, the only daughter, is set on
what seems to her father an unsuitable marriage. While the Duke
must learn to accept that 'nothing will ever be quite what it
used to be', his heir must acquire, his father hopes, a respect
for justice, self-sacrifice, and honour, and a suitable wife. The
rival claims of Lady Mabel Grex and Isabel Boncassen, the American
granddaughter of a dock-worker, are emblematic of the claims on the
Palliser family: tradition against progress, duty against natural
feelings. The Duke's Children is the sixth and last of the
Palliser novels (1864-80), which together provide an exceptionally
rich expose of the British way of life during its most prestigious
period.
Anthony Trollope (1815-82), geb. in London, wuchs in einfachen Verhältnissen auf und wurde Postbeamter. Er lebte abwechselnd in den Vereinigten Staaten, in Irland und England. Seine Barchester-Romane machten ihn berühmt. Sie schildern humorvoll bissig und unpathetisch präzise die viktorianische Mittelschicht eines fiktiven und dafür umso realeren Domstädtchens im Süden Englands.
