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“SO DELIGHTFUL A PLOT”: LIES, GOSSIP, AND THE NARRATION OF SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT IN THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2008

Zubair S. Amir
Zubair S. Amir*
Affiliation:
Benedictine University
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Extract

One of the most inveterate and gifted liars in Victorian fiction, Lizzie Eustace, the heroine of Anthony Trollope's 1873 novel The Eustace Diamonds, is also one of the most enigmatic. Driven both by her social ambition and by her desire to retain the Eustace family diamonds – a necklace given to her by her late husband but claimed by his relatives as an heirloom – Lizzie depends on deceit to achieve her ends throughout the novel. Yet, her reliance on mendacity becomes perplexingly excessive, confusing not only her sycophantic companion, Julia Macnulty, but most of the story's other characters as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2008 , pp. 187 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

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