Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope

First published: 1873-1874, serial; 1874, book

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Political

Time of plot: Mid-nineteenth century

Locale: England

Principal characters

• Phineas Finn, an Irish politician and a widower
• Madame Marie Max Goesler, a wealthy and pretty widow
• Lady Laura Kennedy, Phineas’s beloved
• Mr. Kennedy, her estranged husband
• Lord Chiltern, Laura’s brother
• Violet Chiltern, his wife
• Lady Glencora, the duchess of Omnium
• Mr. Bonteen, a conniving politician

The Story:

The conservatives have been in control of the government for more than a year. The liberals, in planning a return to power, want to get every good man they can muster. Thirty years of age, Phineas Finn had retired from politics two years earlier to marry his childhood sweetheart and settle down in a modest but permanent position in Ireland. He is invited back to resume his political career. His wife had died in the interval, and he had saved enough to permit him to live two or three years without being given an office. The urging of his friends seems to imply that he will not have to wait long for an office, so he agrees to give up his security for the more exciting life of a member of Parliament. He is to run for the borough of Tankerville, which is held by a corrupt conservative named Browborough.

While awaiting the election, Phineas visits Lord Chiltern and Violet, who are happily married. Chiltern has at last found the occupation perfectly suited to his temperament and enthusiasm for hunting—master of the Brake Hounds. Also visiting the Chilterns are Adelaid Palliser and Mr. Maule, a gloomy and idle but rather pleasing young man, who is devoted to and loved by Adelaid.

In the Tankerville election, Phineas campaigns for separation of church and state. Although Browborough wins by seven votes, the seat is to be contested on evidence that Browborough bought votes. In a desperate effort to keep his party in power, the conservative leader also advocates separation of church and state.

On his way to visit Lady Laura Kennedy and her father in Dresden, Phineas is summoned by her estranged husband to his estate. Kennedy’s mind has become deranged; his one purpose in life is to get his wife back. He forbids Phineas from visiting her and accuses him of adultery. Although he knows he is not guilty, Phineas cannot reason with Kennedy. Later, in Dresden, Laura confides that her love for Phineas is the real reason behind the failure of her marriage; Phineas, however, has long felt nothing but friendship for Laura.

On his next visit to the Chilterns, Phineas sees Madame Marie Max Goesler. The first meeting is awkward because of their earlier relationship, but soon they are friends again. She tells Phineas that she has been acting as unofficial companion and nurse to the old duke of Omnium, now on his deathbed. Lady Glencora, the duke’s niece, has become her intimate friend.

Adelaid’s good breeding attracts the uncouth squire and fox hunter Spooner. Unaware of the subtleties of social behavior, Spooner feels he is more eligible than Maule, whose income is small. Spooner’s proposal of marriage is refused with horror, and Maule’s proposal is accepted. Maule and Adelaid feel that they can marry if his father will let them live in the abandoned Maule Abbey. The father, however, is opposed to his son’s marriage to a woman without a fortune. Angry at the implied reminder that the property will be his son’s after his death, he refuses the request.

Quintus Slide, representative of all that is bad in journalism, gives Phineas a letter written to his newspaper by Kennedy. The letter is a madman’s accusation, implying that Phineas and Laura are guilty of adultery. Slide intends to print the letter and enjoys the feeling of power its possession gives him; believing that Phineas is interested only in upholding the institution of marriage, he offers to give Phineas a day to persuade Laura to return to Kennedy. Instead, Phineas goes to Kennedy’s hotel to urge him to retract the letter. Kennedy shoots at Phineas but misses. Despite efforts to keep the affair hushed up, the news leaks out later. When Phineas obtains an injunction against Slide forbidding him from printing the letter, the journalist becomes enraged and writes an editorial in which he refers to the letter, although he does not quote it. He makes the story seem even worse than it is, and the whole affair begins to damage Phineas’s career.

Long disliked by and jealous of Phineas, Mr. Bonteen achieved advancement through party loyalty. After the death of the old duke of Omnium, the new duke has given up his former office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post that Bonteen is now expected to fill as soon as the liberals return to power. Bonteen is using his influence against Phineas, who despairs of getting an office, so Madame Goesler and her friend, Lady Glencora, now duchess of Omnium, resolve on a counterintrigue. Although the duchess prevents Bonteen from acquiring the position of chancellor, she is unable to secure an office for Phineas.

Normally, the liberal party supports separation of church and state, but they decide officially to oppose it, knowing that the conservatives are using the issue only to keep control of the government. Although with some misgivings at first, Phineas goes along with his party. The conservatives are defeated.

Bonteen and his wife befriend a woman victimized by a fortune hunter turned preacher named, variously, Emilius or Mealyus. Mealyus hopes to get half of his wife’s fortune as a settlement, but Bonteen is working to prove a rumor that Mealyus is a bigamist. One night, after Phineas had been publicly insulted by Bonteen in their club, Bonteen is murdered. Phineas and Mealyus are both arrested, but the latter is released when he proves he could not have left his rooming house that night. Circumstances look dark for Phineas. Laura, Madame Goesler, the duchess of Omnium, Phineas’s landlady, and the Chilterns are the only ones convinced of his innocence.

Kennedy dies and leaves everything to Laura; she dreams that she might be happy with Phineas at last, although she senses at the same time that her hope is impossible. On the trail of evidence to help Phineas by destroying Mealyus’s alibi, Madame Goesler goes to Prague; she suspects Mealyus of having another rooming house key made there during a recent trip. Then Mealyus’s first wife is discovered, and Mealyus is arrested for bigamy. At Phineas’s trial, the circumstantial evidence against him breaks down when Madame Goesler wires from Prague that she has found proof of Mealyus’s duplicate key. Laura realizes that Madame Goesler has saved Phineas, and now she hates her as a rival.

The late duke of Omnium had willed a handsome fortune to Madame Goesler. She did not need the money and is now afraid of suspicion that she had been the duke’s mistress, so she refuses to accept it. The duchess takes up the cause of Maule and Adelaid; they are too poor to marry, and it is out of the question to expect Maule to work. Adelaid is a niece of the old duke, and the duchess persuades Madame Goesler to let Adelaid have the fortune she herself will not accept. Adelaid and Maule are able to marry, and Maule’s father is so pleased with her fortune that he turns Maule Abbey over to them after all. Spooner, who has clung to his hope of marrying Adelaid, is so miserable that he gives up fox hunting for a time. Quintus Slide, who has consistently denounced Phineas and Laura in his newspaper, is sued for libel by Chiltern. Chiltern wins the suit, and Slide is forced to leave the paper.

Phineas is the hero of the day—overwhelmingly reelected in Tankerville, sought by the ladies, acclaimed everywhere—but the knowledge that he is suspected by friends as well as by strangers makes him miserable and bitter. Gradually, as his spirits improve, he is able to meet people and to resume his seat in Parliament. He also is offered the same office he had filled so well in his earlier parliamentary career. Although he is almost at the end of his funds and needs the position, the knowledge that the offer is made simply because he had not committed murder prompts him to refuse.

While visiting Laura at her request, Phineas feels it only honorable to tell her that he plans to propose to Madame Goesler. At first, Laura is violent in her denunciation of Madame Goesler, but she is at last calmed. Hers is the unhappiness of knowing that she had brought all of her misery on herself by marrying one man while loving another. Now deeply in love with Madame Goesler, Phineas proposes marriage and is joyfully accepted. No longer a poor man, Phineas will be able to continue his career in Parliament without being the slave of his party.

Bibliography

Bury, Laurent. Seductive Strategies in the Novels of Anthony Trollope, 1815-1882. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. A study of seduction in Trollope’s novels. Argues that seduction was a survival skill for both men and women in the Victorian era. Demonstrates how Trollope depicted the era’s sexual politics.

Felber, Lynette. Gender and Genre in Novels Without End: The British Roman-Fleuve. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995. A study of multivolume novels written during three periods of history, including Phineas Redux and the other novels in Trollope’s Palliser series. Argues that the narratives of these novels inherently have “narrative features designated feminine.”

Hall, N. John. Trollope: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. A critical biography of the novelist. Reviews the publication history of Phineas Redux and analyzes the novel’s political background. Demonstrates how Trollope allows his characters to grow as the story progresses.

Markwick, Margaret. New Men in Trollope’s Novels: Rewriting the Victorian Male. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2007. Examines Trollope’s novels, tracing the development of his ideas about masculinity. Argues that Trollope’s male characters are not the conventional Victorian patriarchs and demonstrates how his works promoted a “startlingly modern model of manhood.”

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Trollope and Women. London: Hambledon Press, 1997. Examines how Trollope could simultaneously accept the conventional Victorian ideas about women while also sympathizing with women’s difficult situations. Demonstrates the individuality of his female characters. Discusses his depiction of both happy and unhappy marriages, male-female relationships, bigamy, and scandal.

Morse, Deborah Denenholz. Women in Trollope’s Palliser Novels. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987. Examines Trollope’s ambivalent attitude toward women in the Palliser series. A chapter on Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux analyzes portraits of the three Englishwomen whom Phineas loves, all of whom are strong and articulate.

Mullen, Richard, and James Munson. The Penguin Companion to Trollope. New York: Penguin Books, 1996. A comprehensive guide, describing all of Trollope’s novels, short stories, travel books, and other works; discusses plot, characters, background, tone, allusions, and contemporary references; and places the works in their historical context.

Super, R. H. The Chronicler of Barsetshire: A Life of Anthony Trollope. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988. Critical biography by a distinguished scholar. Praises Phineas Redux, of all his novels, as the most “firmly embedded in contemporary British politics.” Notes the confusion caused by Trollope’s introduction of the murder and trial, which distract readers from political issues.

Walton, Priscilla L. Patriarchal Desire and Victorian Discourse: A Lacanian Reading of Anthony Trollope’s Palliser Novels. Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Although somewhat specialized in its approach, a chapter on Phineas Redux illuminates Trollope’s attitudes toward feminist issues.