The Duke's Children

by Anthony Trollope, Simon Vance · 1880

In the wake of his beloved wife Lady Glencora’s death, Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium and former Prime Minister, finds himself confronting a solitude he has never known. With his political duties behind him, the widowed duke must now navigate the turbulent lives of his three adult children. His eldest son, Lord Silverbridge, has been expelled from Oxford and is drowning in debt while drifting from his father’s Liberal ideals toward the Conservatives. The second son, Lord Gerald, faces disgrace after being sent down from Cambridge. Meanwhile, his daughter Lady Mary defies convention, falling in love with Frank Tregear, a determined but penniless commoner, and seeks a marriage her father deems unsuitable. As Palliser struggles to impose his sense of duty and lineage, he discovers that the world his children inhabit is changing faster than he can accept. Through heartbreak, financial peril, and the clash of tradition with progress, the duke learns that love and humility often outweigh rigid principle. Trollope’s final Palliser novel offers a vivid portrait of Victorian society, family, and the timeless challenge of letting go.