The Prime Minister took its place as Anthony Trollope’s fifth book in the Palliser sequence. It first appeared as a serial between November 1875 and June 1876, before its issue in four volumes. While many of Trollope’s contemporaries, including Henry James, labeled it a political novel (one so dull, by James’s account, that he could not read it), it offers readers much more in the way of rich character interaction than an ideological treatise. As do all Trollope’s novels, The Prime Minister places British society under a microscope, revealing its blemishes as well as its luster through themes including family and romance. Several of the characters were familiar to Trollope’s wide readership, as they appeared in earlier novels, although readers would not necessarily have read the novels in order.
Trollope begins with the traditional conflict inherent to the love triangle. Emily Wharton is desired by two men: one, a man of action but doubtful family background, named Ferdinand Lopez, and the other, his foil in every way, the well-to-do barrister Arthur Fletcher, who has been in love with Emily since she was a child. Emily’s father naturally prefers Fletcher to Lopez, but Emily marries for love, taking Lopez as her husband. Her choice proves disastrous, as Lopez wastes little time in convincing her to help him borrow money from her father to invest in his questionable schemes.
As Emily’s fortunes seem both literally and figuratively to fade, readers simultaneously observe Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, ascend to become prime minister. With the help of his beautiful wife, Glencora, he entertains various members of the government at the posh Gatherum Castle, “giving dinners, balls, and garden parties,” hoping to hold together a shaky coalition. The impetuous and strong-willed Glencora decides to promote the political fortunes of Lopez, not realizing his true nature. She urges him to take part in the Silverbridge by-election, despite the fact that the duke separates himself from her plans.
Although a battle occurs in the political arena, the most noticeable conflict remains between Lopez and Palliser, and Trollope offers little by way of a satisfying political framework. Additional themes, including the social system, demand more attention than do the workings of the government. The fair-haired Fletcher defeats Lopez, whose inept characterization as a stereotyped Jew in the vein of Shylock has surprised Trollope aficionados. While Lopez begins the novel as rather questionable, he maintains an air of breeding and formality. When the duchess asks whether he would not like to try politics, he replies that he is “into another groove,” having become “essentially a city man—one of those who take up the trade of making money generally.” He goes on to comment that his vocation “disgusts” him, and that, although he likes money well enough, it seems an “insufficient use of one’s life.” That he would even reflect aloud about wealth sets him apart from Trollope’s other well-bred characters, and would have been enough to stamp him as undesirable by Trollope’s readership.
Lopez’s political loss reflects badly on the duke, who turns on his wife, accusing her of betrayal. The duke is caught up in one of Lopez’s schemes to increase his wealth when Lopez demands that he pay all his bills in order to protect Glencora’s reputation. While Palliser may not be the best politician, his integrity remains admirable and proves a more valuable commodity, in Trollope’s view, than political astuteness. Only when Phineas Finn, the subject of two previous novels by Trollope, speaks to the House of Commons are its members distracted from what looms as a possible scandal for the duke. Trollope allows fate to reach its usual balance, as Lopez ruins himself, then commits suicide in a leap from a train. Emily at first feels responsible for her husband’s death and is ill for several weeks. Eventually, she recovers and notes some feeling for Fletcher, whom she had allowed at one point to “caress” her before Lopez’s death. For that reason, she feels ashamed, even though her husband “had ill-used” and “betrayed her [. . .] sought to drag her down to his own depth of debasement.” However, after a respectable amount of time, the faithfully patient Fletcher convinces Emily to marry him, despite his family’s early protest over his selection of the shamed widow. They begin a happy life together, but the prime minister’s party loses its support.
The Pallisers first appeared before their marriage in Trollope’s The Small House in Allington (1862–64), then in Can You Forgive Her? (1864–65), again in Phineas Finn (1867–69), and Phineas Redux (1873–74), and would make their final appearance in The Duke’s Children (1879–80). Trollope’s accomplishment in retaining a coherent story line through literally thousands of pages (The Prime Minister alone is more than 280,000 words) remains remarkable. Some critics believe he stumbled in making Lopez Jewish, then abandoning him to a flat stereotype about whom Fletcher remarks, “I wish I could have the pleasure of shooting him as a man might a few years ago.” Unlike George Eliot, whose Daniel Deronda (1876) offered a more balanced study of what it meant to be a Jew in England, Trollope ignores the broader significance of Lopez’s Jewishness. However, that flaw does not negate the value of his novel. The perfectly executed dialogue and detailed view of high-society life and strain remain eminently readable, and his exploration of women’s rights is of interest to feminist critics. Emily is little more than chattel to Lopez, while the duchess contrasts through her independent nature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Glendinning, Victoria. Anthony Trollope. New York: Knopf, 1993.
McCormick, John. Introduction to The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983, vii–xviii.
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