Lizzie Eustace is young, beautiful, and widowed. Her determination to hold on to a fabulous necklace in the face of legal harassment by her brother-in-law's solicitor entangles her in a series of crimes - apparent and real - and contrived love-affairs. Her cousin, Frank Greystock, loyally assists her, much to the distress of his fiancee, Lucy Morris. A pompous Under-Secretary, a neurotic American society belle, a brutal knight, and a shady Scottish radical peer are only some of Trollope's engaging and revealing characters in this melange of detective story, political novel, and ironic romance. The Eustace Diamonds (1873) is the third in the Palliser series. Though often considered the least political of the six, it is a highly revealing study of Victoran Britain, its colonial activities in Ireland, India, and Australia, and its veneration of wealth.


Novel by Anthony Trollope, published serially from 1871 to 1873 and in book form in New York in 1872. It is a satirical study of the influence of money on marital and sexual relations. The story follows two contrasting women and their courtships. Lizzie Eustace and Lucy Morris are both hampered in their love affairs by their lack of money. Lizzie's trickery and deceit, however, contrast with Lucy's constancy. Trollope was understood to be commenting on the malaise in Victorian England that allowed a character like Lizzie, who marries for money, steals the family diamonds, and behaves despicably throughout, to rise unscathed in society. The work is the third of Trollope's six PALLISER NOVELS. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature