Name: Can You Forgive Her?
ISBN: 9780140430868

Anthony Trollope

As a scandalized Victorian society looks on, Alice Vavasor, Lady Glencora, and the Widow Greenow continue their romantic entanglements with disreputable suitors

Can You Forgive Her?

Janice Hopper

Well, who knew musty old Anthony Trollope could be so entertaining??? I sure didn't. 

I've spent so much time in the last years reading fairly current (or future-oriented) fiction that I've neglected some of the classics. Then I joined the Victorian book club sponsored by a local book store. This is my second book with them. The first was The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, which I've read in the past, more than once, I think. But I'd never read any Trollope. 

This is the first book in the Palliser series. I've heard the name, but had no idea what it comprised. Well, it's about people, LOL. Families (mostly wealthy) in England of the mid-1800s. There always talk about how many pounds so-and-so has per year. There are young men from good families going to rack and ruin, usually through overwhelming debt. There are women constrained by their roles in society, or chafed by those same roles. There's comic relief in the characters of the wealthy widow and her two suitors. There's real worry and suspense in a couple of places too!

I'm actually thinking of going on to another volume. Of course, I said that when I read The Mayor of Casterbridge too, and never got around to it, LOL. 

It didn't hurt that I ear-read most of the book. David Shaw-Parker was a most excellent narrator, and really livened the story up.

Well done, sirs. Well done.