The cover page is adapted from Das Ballsouper, a painting completed in 1878 by Adolph Menzel. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Menzelwww.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
The Prime Minister
Chapters (80)
- I: Ferdinand Lopez 0:00
- II: Everett Wharton 20:44
- III: Mr. Abel Wharton, Q.C. 42:20
- IV: Mrs. Roby 1:09:34
- V: “No One Knows Anything About Him” 1:22:15
- VI: An Old Friend Goes to Windsor 1:39:26
- VII: Another Old Friend 2:02:28
- VIII: The Beginning of a New Career 2:20:18
- IX: Mrs. Dick’s Dinner Party.—No. I 2:41:38
- X: Mrs. Dick’s Dinner Party.—No. II 3:04:34
- XI: Carlton Terrace 3:26:17
- XII: The Gathering of Clouds 3:56:50
- XIII: Mr. Wharton Complains 4:13:13
- XIV: A Lover’s Perseverance 4:39:42
- XV: Arthur Fletcher 4:57:58
- XVI: Never Run Away! 5:20:42
- XVII: Goodbye 5:42:05
- XVIII: The Duke of Omnium Thinks of Himself 5:55:41
- XIX: Vulgarity 6:22:04
- XX: Sir Orlando’s Policy 6:42:40
- XXI: The Duchess’s New Swan 7:08:18
- XXII: St. James’s Park 7:23:02
- XXIII: Surrender 7:56:16
- XXIV: The Marriage 8:19:00
- XXV: The Beginning of the Honeymoon 8:36:11
- XXVI: The End of the Honeymoon 8:57:00
- XXVII: The Duke’s Misery 9:14:59
- XXVIII: The Duchess Is Much Troubled 9:47:37
- XXIX: The Two Candidates for Silverbridge 10:01:59
- XXX: “Yes;—A Lie!” 10:21:57
- XXXI: “Yes;—with a Horsewhip in My Hand” 10:42:52
- XXXII: “What Business Is It of Yours?” 11:04:41
- XXXIII: Showing That a Man Should Not Howl 11:25:49
- XXXIV: The Silverbridge Election 11:40:07
- XXXV: Lopez Back in London 12:14:23
- XXXVI: The Jolly Blackbird 12:40:33
- XXXVII: The Horns 12:55:21
- XXXVIII: Sir Orlando Retires 13:22:36
- XXXIX: “Get Round Him” 13:43:43
- XL: “Come and Try It” 14:00:21
- XLI: The Value of a Thick Skin 14:20:02
- XLII: Retribution 14:33:57
- XLIII: Kauri Gum 15:11:32
- XLIV: Mr. Wharton Intends to Make a New Will 15:30:22
- XLV: Mrs. Sexty Parker 15:49:18
- XLVI: “He Wants to Get Rich Too Quick” 16:07:14
- XLVII: As for Love! 16:28:58
- XLVIII: “Has He Ill-Treated You?” 16:57:56
- XLIX: “Where Is Guatemala?” 17:14:16
- L: Mr. Slide’s Revenge 17:32:52
- LI: Coddling the Prime Minister 17:55:44
- LII: “I Can Sleep Here Tonight, I Suppose?” 18:20:37
- LIII: Mr. Hartlepod 18:43:17
- LIV: Lizzie 19:02:48
- LV: Mrs. Parker’s Sorrows 19:29:29
- LVI: What the Duchess Thought of Her Husband 19:43:48
- LVII: The Explanation 20:07:03
- LVIII: “Quite Settled” 20:30:35
- LIX: “The First and the Last” 20:50:45
- LX: The Tenway Junction 21:06:58
- LXI: The Widow and Her Friends 21:31:07
- LXII: Phineas Finn Has a Book to Read 21:53:55
- LXIII: The Duchess and Her Friend 22:15:37
- LXIV: The New K.G. 22:35:44
- LXV: “There Must Be Time” 22:57:22
- LXVI: The End of the Session 23:11:46
- LXVII: Mrs. Lopez Prepares to Move 23:33:13
- LXVIII: The Prime Minister’s Political Creed 23:53:00
- LXIX: Mrs. Parker’s Fate 24:20:06
- LXX: At Wharton 24:34:42
- LXXI: The Ladies at Longbarns Doubt 25:02:58
- LXXII: “He Thinks That Our Days Are Numbered” 25:18:28
- LXXIII: Only the Duke of Omnium 25:52:19
- LXXIV: “I Am Disgraced and Shamed” 26:17:12
- LXXV: The Great Wharton Alliance 26:46:37
- LXXVI: Who Will It Be? 27:10:20
- LXXVII: The Duchess in Manchester Square 27:27:35
- LXXVIII: The New Ministry 27:44:02
- LXXIX: The Wharton Wedding 28:05:34
- LXXX: The Last Meeting at Matching 28:34:30
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Plantagenet Palliser, now the Duke of Omnium, is a familiar character to the readers of the Barchester and Palliser series, but only now, at a moment of political crisis, does he take center stage. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives can command a majority in Parliament; the Duke is called upon as the only figure capable of forming a coalition government. He does so, but only with deep misgivings about whether the role of Prime Minister suits his character. As he assumes the role, the irrepressible Duchess, still known as Lady Glencora to her friends as well as her enemies, forms an ambition of her own to bolster his administration with lavish social display, much to her husband’s consternation.
The antitype to the virtuous Duke is the character of Ferdinand Lopez, whose story—along with that of his wife, and his rival—frames and intertwines with that of the Prime Minister’s coalition government. While the Duke is upright but thin-skinned, Lopez possesses the thickest of skins, but no morals to speak of. His vaulting ambition likewise contrasts with the Duke’s enervating self-doubt.
Trollope commenced writing The Prime Minister only a few weeks after completing his masterpiece, The Way We Live Now. His caustic treatment of contemporary English society in the earlier novel spills over into the menace posed by Lopez in this one.
Though contemporary critics were not impressed by The Prime Minister, C. P. Snow reports in his biography of Trollope that others were. Leo Tolstoy, for one, read it with appreciation while writing Anna Karenina, his secretary recording Tolstoy’s admiration: “Trollope kills me, kills me with his excellence.” Meanwhile, Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister from 1957 to 1963, told Snow that Trollope’s studies of political process were “right both in tone and detail.”