PRIME MINISTER - Penguin

Can a morally scrupulous English gentleman make an effective Prime Minister'this is one of the enduringly fascinating problems posed in The Prime Minister (1876). And as Plantaganet Palliser, Duke of Omnium, overenthusiastically supported by Lady Glencora, presides over the Coalition government, Trollope reaches into the highest echelons of the English establishment, depicting political realities rather than ideology, portraying social, sexual and domestic politics as well as the public variety.The world of the novel is perplexed and dominated by the handsome imposter Ferdinand Lopez. Even the Duke and Duchess are not immune to his malign influence, as Lopez pursues Emily Wharton for her charm and her fortune, and plots to win membership of that most exclusive of English clubs, the Houses of Parliament.The Prime Minister is a major novel in the Trollope canon, admired as much by Tolstoy as by several leading twentieth-century politicians. It is the key work and penultimate novel in the Palliser series, regarded by David Skilton as 'one of the greatest extended fictions in the English language'.