The Eustace Diamonds was serialized in the Fortnightly Review from 1871 to 1873 and published in book form by Chapman & Hall in 1873. Lizzie Eustace is a liar, a schemer, and one of Trollope’s most fascinating creations. Widowed young and wealthy, she possesses a magnificent diamond necklace that she claims her late husband gave her as a personal gift. The Eustace family’s lawyers insist the necklace is an heirloom — legally part of the estate and therefore not Lizzie’s to keep. The dispute over the diamonds — are they heirlooms or paraphernalia? — drives the plot, but Trollope is interested less in the legal question than in what the diamonds reveal about everyone who wants them.
Lizzie is a liar so accomplished that she sometimes deceives herself. She reads Byron, models herself on a romantic heroine, and genuinely believes — or at least persuades herself — that the world owes her beauty, wealth, and devotion. She is also shrewd, resilient, and, in her way, brave. Trollope gives her enough intelligence and energy to make her entertaining rather than merely repellent, and her downfall — when the diamonds are stolen and her web of lies collapses — generates sympathy as well as satisfaction.
The novel’s great counterweight to Lizzie is Lucy Morris, her cousin’s governess: honest, intelligent, poor, and steadfastly loyal to her fiancé Frank Greystock, whom Lizzie is simultaneously trying to seduce. Lucy represents the Trollopian virtues of truth and constancy, but she is no passive heroine — her patience is sustained by a stubbornness and moral clarity that match Lizzie’s energy.
Collecting The Eustace Diamonds
First edition (Chapman & Hall, London, 1873): Three volumes, cloth binding.
Market values:
- First edition, three volumes, fine: $3,000–$8,000
- Very good: $1,000–$3,000