First published in 1872, The Eustace Diamonds is the third book in Trollope’s Palliser series and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I read it on my Kindle although I have a paperback copy of it and at 770 pages it’s the usual Anthony Trollope chunkster.

Lizzie Greystock is the only child of Admiral Greystock who died penniless and in debt, and as Lizzie’s mother is already dead it means that Lizzie needs to marry money to make her way in the world. She’s not going to earn an honest living as a governess, as many women in her position have done before.

Lizzie learned a lot from her father and has the same spendthrift ways, nevertheless she manages to hook a wealthy husband who is already seriously ill, Sir Florian Eustace dies within a year, probably hastened by Lizzie’s behaviour as he soon realises that she’s an avaricious minx. He leaves her an estate in Scotland for her lifetime and plenty of money. Well, it would be enough money for most people but as Lizzie has always lived way beyond her means she can’t change her ways and still finds herself in debt and having to frequent the pawnbroker’s office.

She has in her possession a diamond necklace valued at £10,000 and although it has been handed down in the Eustace family for generations Lizzie chooses to regard the Eustace Diamonds as her own property, rather than something which should be kept for future generations, particularly her baby son Florian Eustace. Legal battles ensue. Lizzie is one of those peope who just can’t tell the truth, and quickly comes to believe in her own lies. It’s fair to say that if Lizzie were in a panto we’d all be hissing at her but she’s so ghastly she actually manages to get decent people on her side. I think nowadays she’d be described as being ‘a piece of work’.

In tandem with that storyline is the fortunes of Lucy Morris, in a similar situation to Lizzie, she opts to become a governess and earns her own way in the world and is the exact opposite sort of character to Lizzie. She’s honest and true and wins the heart of Frank Greystock, a good man although he has inherited the same spendthrift Greystock genes as Lizzie, he is really in need of a rich wife who can help him on in his political career. Frank is Lizzie’s cousin and he becomes embroiled in the whole murky Eustace affair.

Well, that’s as much as I’m going to say about the storyline, if you haven’t read the Palliser series you might like to start from the beginning with Can You Forgive Her? which you can download for free from Project Gutenberg.

On a personal note I was absolutely amazed when the action in the book shifted to Ayrshire in Scotland, and to what I’m sure was Culzean Castle although in the book it’s called Portray Castle. We recently visited Culzean, you can see my post here and if you know it I’m sure you’ll agree that this passage from the book describes the place perfectly, it begins:

‘The castle stood on a bluff of land, with a fine prospect of the Firth of Clyde, and with a distant view of the isle of Arran.’

It’s a long description but it all fits with Culzean so I’m sure Trollope must have been there at some point. This and the fact that two of the characters ended up getting married in the episcopal church in Ayr, which happens to be the church which my brother-in-law was curate of way back in the 1970s, meant that I was recognising places as well as characters, because Trollope was so good at writing about people, their thoughts and experiences.