Book Description
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Customer Reviews (3)

An Eye for an Eye
I disagree with one of the other reviewers that this book is a "light read." It is assuredly not in the comic vein of most of Trollope's novels and it is, if anything, "heavy" indeed! It is cast in the mold of a classical tragedy with the hero conflicted between his duty to his family and his duty to the woman he loves. Trollope dearly loves to place his characters in such a bind, but this time it doesn't have a happy ending as is so often the case. It is thus atypical of Trollope's novels,though it does reveal the author's romantic preference for love over duty. In many ways this may be his most powerful statement for that preference as love does not win out in the end. I strongly recommend it, but as with one of the other reviewers, not as a first taste of Trollope. The book is quite different from most of his many other novels.

The Perils of Fecklessness
Normally, I would recommend that a new Trollope reader would start with one of the longer novels like BARCHESTER TOWERS or THE WAY WE LIVE NOW. Although it is atypical for a Trollope novel, AN EYE FOR AN EYE is short, rather elegantly written, and a good book to read if you have no intentions of tackling the entire 47-novel Trollope canon.

The aging Earl of Scroope finds it necessary to adopt a young relative by the name of Fred Neville as his heir. Because the bane of his family has been heirs marrying beneath them, he makes the young lieutenant swear to wed someone worthy of carrying on the Scroope line "sans reproche" (without reproach), which is the family motto.

On a visit back to his barracks in Ireland, Neville decides to hire a boat and go shooting seals and seagulls. On the shore, atop the stunning Cliffs of Moher, he meets an attractive Irish widow and her beautiful daughter Kate. Naturally, he falls in love with the daughter despite rumors of an inappropriate father who was supposed to be dead.

The action swings like a pendulum between Scroope Manor and the Cliffs of Moher. At one location, the Earl and his wife make him promised to find a suitable mate; at the other, Kate and her mother -- with the help of the old local priest Father Marty -- work on joining Fred and Katie in Holy Matrimony.

Fred never can entirely make up his find. The final solution is some sort of bogus affair, in which Kate does not become Lady Scroope, involving perhaps a hushed-up marriage abroad. Naturally, this pleases no one.

Without divulging the ending, we find Fred paying the price for his wishy-washiness. A classical tragedy in the mold of his earlier LINDA TRESSEL, AN EYE FOR AN EYE is well worth reading under any circumstances. It tends to stand sui generis, so don't expect it to resemble his most famous works.

Quick, interesting read
Eye for an Eye has an immature young man making rather a mess of his first entree into adult opportunities.The book is a jaunty, interesting run to a conclusion--a reminder that immature behavior by a young adult can have unforeseen consequences.Many of the devices of Trollope's comic novels are here, but they subserve a plot which resolves in a decidedly non-comic fashion.A light read, an interesting commentary, and a social frankness that does not seem at all old fashioned.Trollope was not always an ardent critic of his own social order, but he understood the problems, as this book shows in a non-preachy way. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Mrs Amedroz, the wife of Bernard Amedroz, Esq, of Belton Castle, and mother of Charles and Clara Amedroz, died when those children were only eight and six years old, thereby subjecting them to the greatest misfortune which children born in that sphere of life can be made to suffer. And, in the case of this boy and girl, the misfortune was aggravated greatly by the peculiarities of the father's character. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

beautiful story, lousy copy
A wonderful story that hooks you right out of the box...with all the usual "you are there" Trollopian visual descriptions. I think that Trollope was one of the world's great novelists and he does not disappoint here. But the publisher! As noted by other reviewers, misspellings, malapropisms and atrocious punctuation abound and really ticked me off considering the price of this book! There is totally no excuse for this slovenly editing. I think it was done by a computer program...another victim of outsourcing. Another thing is that although the listing is for Dodo press, the copy I received from Amazon was from BiblioBazaar!? So the listed publisher is probably not at fault.

Good story, crappy edition
The novel is as engaging as I expected, given my love of Trollope's other works, but this version is really terrible- I agree with the other review that the punctuation editting was incredibly distracting.At first, I thought it was an annoying stylistic affectation that most commas, dashes and colons were missing.When I was reading the first chapter, it felt, at times, as though James Joyce had stepped into Trollope's world.Then I saw several odd periods in the midst of sentences and concluded the problem was likely a crappy typesetter and inadequate quality control of the proof.I've never seen this imprint before, but I'll be avoiding it in the future.

A good story, but where was the copyeditor?!?
I'm halfway through this book, and I'm really enjoying it. HOWEVER, the edition I received seems to have been copyedited by preschoolers. Most of the commas are missing, which makes it a challenge to decipher Trollope's often long, meandering sentences. And the text is littered with misspellings. Fortunately, it only took a few chapters for me to get in the rhythm of this comma-deprived edition, and I do like the story. I'd recommend this book only if you're a real Trollope devotee.

One of my favorite Trollope novels
This Trollope novel has been one of my favorites for years, the character of Will Belton is wonderful, and the episodes between Clara and her fiance Frederick's family are priceless.There is so much to like about this story, it would be a shame for a reader to pass it up.

Belton Estate- Heir or Error Apparent?
This novel of Trollope's poses his usual question: will the middle class heroine find true love in spite of various social/emotional conflicts? In this case his poverty-stricken heroine has two suiters and must decide between the one she loves and the one who loves her. The dilemmais atricky one since the man she loves has culture and wealth and breeding butno strong feelings for her; while the rougher and uncultured man who lovesher is truly devoted to her. Trollope has written better paced novels butthis one does hold the reader until the solution is reached. ... Read more

Book Description
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Something more than a month had gone by, and John Caldigate and Mrs. Smith were very close companions. This had not been effected without considerable opposition, partly on the part of Shand, and partly by the ship's inhabitants generally. The inhabitants of the ship were inimical to Mrs. Smith. She was a woman who had no friends; and the very female who had first appeared as a friend was now the readiest to say hard things of her. And Caldigate was a handsome well-mannered young man. By this time all the ladies in the first-class knew very well who he was, and some of them had spoken to him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pretty good book
John Caldigate is a somewhat weak-willed man where women are concerned, as well as where gambling occurs, so he has managed to bankrupt himself as well as get himself "engaged" to several women through the course of the book, all because he can't say No when he should.Women cause him the greater trouble, but when he eventually returns home to England as a wealthy man (hard work was what made him so) and marries the woman he truly loves, his greatest troubles are now with business associates from his past and his wife's relations.What poses a disaster for himself and his wife (mother of his infant son) is a relationship he had with a "fast" woman, an actress, while he was making his fortune in Australia.She shows up in England, wanting money, and claims that she is actually John's wife.Thus John's marriage is bigamous, his son illegitmate, and his wife downfallen. The extent to which her family interferes, even to kidnapping the wife, is outrageous and dramatic.In fact, most of this book is high drama.It is very entertaining, and it resolves itself nicely, although all John's former "fiancees" do spend much time being thankful that they never married him.There is humor here, and there is tension.A very good read. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
Well now, Gertrude, do you mean to say you think it right that Katie should sit by and hear a man talk as Captain Cuttwater talked last night? Do you mean to say that the scene which passed, with the rum and the curses, and the absurd ridicule which was thrown on your mother's uncle, was such as should take place in your mother's drawing-room? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Dull
I've been reading Trollope's works, and coming across the Three Clerks, thought it might be as interesting and as exciting as the novels I had already read.Not so.Generally, Trollope takes his time at the beginning of his books, setting up characters, situations, locations -- so for about one hundred pages or less, you have a rather slow-paced, dull introduction.Then the suspense tends to emerge and the books become difficult to put down until the very satisfying (in most cases) ending.However, The Three Clerks lacks suspense.Partly, this is due to Trollope's negligence in fleshing out his characters; otherwise, it is the result of concentrating on his exposition on the civil service and less on his characters and their private situations.The book becomes Dickensian in some respects, and Dickens isn't exactly known for clarity or excitement.There being no suspense about the characters, and in fact no great interest in any of them, the book is more of an endurance test to read than a pleasure.

One problem could be that Trollope tries to handle too many characters.The Three Clerks of the title are Harry Norman, his best friend and eventually worst enemy Alaric Tudor (who steals his promotion and then his lady-love), and Alaric's cousin, the dissipated and indebted Charley Tudor. Of these young men, Harry Norman in his innocence, having much to learn about the ways of men, women and the world, would have been the most interesting to pursue, but Trollope concentrates on Alaric and his ambitions which eventually get him into a courtroom and jail -- though with a surprisingly light sentence for a man who swindles a client's fortune.The young men are matched to three young women, the Woodward sisters.Gertrude, the eldest, is cold-hearted and ambitious, and though Harry Norman loves her greatly, makes a heartless but intellectual decision to unite herself with Alaric, whose ambition she admires.She pays the price for this, but she does so in the typical female role, always viewing her husband as something near to a god, never blaming him for his failings and his crimes, and standing by her man through the trials that will follow for her and her children.Gertrude, like Alaric, gets her comeuppance, but she is also symbolic of the dependent woman of her time and often of our times, sticking to a man through all insult because the world has convinced her that not only can she not stand on her own, but she deserves no better than to be the support of a man whose ethics and behaviors are questionable.Linda, Gertrude's younger sister, who is loved and romanced but then dumped by Alaric, who cold-heartedly and ambitiously wants the oldest daughter rather than the one he professes to love, is like Harry Norman an interesting character who should have been explored but who gets little mention in the pages of the book.She is superceded by her baby sister, Katie, who falls for the useless rogue Charley and thus falls into an hysterical wasting-away that is so annoying that you almost wish . . . Well, never mind what you wish, but all six of these characters are dissatisfying and foolish, victims of their era and their stations in life.Add to that, we have Mrs. Woodward, mother to the three women, who is very nice but ineffectual and though having the opportunity to succeed, succumbs to being helpless without a man to take care of her.She is of no benefit to her daughters and actually far too negligent in her mothering of them, leading to the disasters and potential disasters in the book.Lesser characters include Undecimus Scott, the villian who leads Alaric astray, who is not as evil as he is expected to be but merely manipulative and conniving, essentially a bore. There is also Uncle Bat, a retired sea captain who makes a home with the Woodwards and generally drinks himself into a stupor.Or members of the civil service who both support or compete with Harry and Alaric in their rise in their careers.Everything ends well for Harry, at least, and Linda -- two good people get their just reward.Charley Tudor turns into a Trollope himself, writing stories for the literary magazines of his day, although the author reproduces his stories within the context of the book, which introduces just another method of dulling the pace and the action of the novel itself.Plenty of pages here to skim or skip, the book could have been half the size but still have retained the essence of the story -- on the other hand, if the author had only developed his characters and followed the important ones more closely, we could have had a finer novel of psychological and moral import.

9 to 5 Victorian Style
Trollope covers broad range of life in this wonderfully amusing tale of three very diverse clerks and the career paths they take in Victorian England. He depicts them with depth and sympathy and you can't help feeling sorry for the plights their own follies bring upon them. Trollope knew thelife he wrote about from his own eventful and long remembered career as apostal worker! Romance and vivid scene painting combine with socialcomentary to make Three Clerks a classic worth reading for pleasure as wellas for the cultural history education it offers. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

La Vendée
Trollope is one of the most prolific writers who ever set pen to paper, surely. For that reason, perhaps, he is underrated. His novels are always lively and understated: he has his sights on a target much harder to hit than mere entertainment. And for readers who want to read well-written stories and, at the same time, be asked to think about serious social issues, Trollope is a must. This novel may be his best.
La Vendée is an historical novel that focuses on the peasant revolt after the French revolution, and, as usual, Trollope works romance into his theme. But his "take" on the revolt, and on war itself, is truly profound. He forces the reader to consider the possibility that war in inherently wrong and that nothing is really accomplished in even the most seemingly justified of wars. He clearly sides with the royalists, though he can see both sides of the complicated political situation. And he wonders aloud, and with increasingly disturbing insights, whether all the death and carnage accomplished anything worthwhile. This is an outstanding novel. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.Download Description
This also he told himself a dozen times. But, nevertheless, there was a very agony of remorse, a weight of repentance, in that he had not striven to make sure of his prize when he had been at Granpere before the marriage was settled. Had she loved him as she ought to have loved him, had she loved him as he loved her, there should have been no question possible to her of marriage with another man. But still he repented, in that he had lost that which he desired, and might perhaps have then obtained it for himself. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Golden Lion of Granpere
This little book (180pps) is certainly not Trollope's best. But even on this small stage we see displayed two of the author's favorite themes: the plight of women in a Victorian age who are treated like chattel and the conflict between inclination, on the one hand,and self-restraint and duty, on the other -- "aristocratic virtues" as de Tocqueville called them, and values we seem to have lost. We see Trollope's chauvanism at its worst, as the heroine must choose between the weak man her well-meaning uncle has selected for her and the "manly" man she prefers, the man who will be her lord and master and reduce her to the submissive position Trollope seems convinced women prefer.
But there is no one who saw more clearly, or felt more deeply, the agonies of a Victorian age (for all its faults) that was in its death throes, with capitalism and industrialism bearing down and the sense of somethingoutside the self, something to whom or to which we have a duty, weakening in the face of self-absorption. The book is worth reading, but not as a sample of Trollope at his best. For that I recommend The Warden or, perhaps, La Vendée. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Book Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more