The second of Trollope’s Palliser novels tells of the career of a hot-blooded middle-class politician whose sexual energies bring him much success with women.

          Struggling to make his mark among gentlemen and to find a suitably rich and well connected wife, Phineas is an attractive, ambitious and adaptable young Irishman. In a time of radical political agitation, his story reveals both the splendour and absurdity of parliamentary proceedings, the sloganeering, jockeying for position and inevitable compromises of the party system.