"Can You Forgive Her?" is a novel by Anthony Trollope, the first of his Palliser novels. It deals with three related love-triangles, much in the setting of Victorian times.
In the main plot, Alicia Vavasor is pursued by an honourable country gentleman, John Grey. She becomes engaged to him, but she breaks it. Once engaged to her cousin George, more of the reckless kind, he now pursues her again as he seeks her fortune to pay off his debts. He also wants to enter Parliament and become a politician. Alicia is attracted to the
political life. She lends George money and agrees to marry him but only after a year. George is disinherited by his grandfather, and eventually loses an expensively contested parliament seat. Devastated and ruined, he escapes to America. John Grey, who survives George Vavasor's attempts to shoot him, proposes again to Alice, and this
time she accepts him.
The second
plot concerns a cousin of Alice and also her friend, Lady Glencora. She marries Plantagenet Palliser, a rising Liberal politician, despite her continuing attraction to Burgo Fitzgerald. During a ball at Lady Monk's she is about to elope with Fitzgerald, but the plan was thwarted when someone warned Palliser about it and he arrives in time to take her home. Palliser wants to do something about pleasing his wife as he realizes that his devotion to politics has taken its toll on their marriage. He makes a major decision not to accept the coveted post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, instead, take Lady Glencora on an extended European holiday. To make the story short, this second plot ends with the birth of a son to the Pallisers, Lord Silverbridge, therefore ensuring a succession to the Omnium title, and with Grey's election to the Palliser pocket borough of Silverbridge. Alice is extremely pleased at the turn of events especially in relation to her political interests.
The third plot which is also more comic than the first two, reverses the situation of the other previous ones. It tells about a wealthy widow aunt of Alice who chooses a suitor, a dashing good looking man,
instead of a more financially stable gentleman.
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