The Prime Minister
by Anthony Trollope
Despite his mysterious predecessors, the unscrupulous financial speculator Ferdinand Lopez tries to marry in dignity and wealth and join the ranks of British society. The story of Lopez, one of the most memorable strangers of the nineteenth century, is set against the story of one of the ultimate insiders, Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, who reluctantly accepted the highest public office and became "the greatest man in the greatest country in the world." The Prime Minister is the fifth in Trollope's six-volume Pallyser series and a surprisingly fine portrait of marriage, political interests and inappropriate love. Nicholas Crevetton's foreword explores many aspects of this complex novel, the role of the "stranger" Ferdinand Lopez and Trollope's great ability to integrate the two themes of love and politics, Palliser and Lady Glencore, and the marriage of Emily Wharton and Ferdinand Lopez.
