Phineas Finn is the second Anthony Trollope novel I’ve read (you can read my review of Can You Forgive Her? here), and the second in his Palliser series. In this novel, our hero, Phineas Finn, is a good natured, very attractive, and upstanding young man who is the son of an Irish country doctor. His father has paid his expenses while he studies under Mr. Low, a London barrister (lawyer). While dining at his club, young Finn is approached by his friend, Barrington Erle, and convinced to run for a seat in parliament for the borough of Loughshane. It’s a dead certainty he will win it, since there will be no serious opposition. The only problem is that members of parliament (MPs) do not get paid, and Phineas is entirely dependent on his father for his expenses!

Despite his father’s and Mr. Low’s very good arguments against running, Phineas decides to do it, and before he knows it, he is seated in Parliament. His longsuffering father agrees to continue his allowance until he can somehow figure out a way to pay his own way. Soon, he is swimming in the high society of London, but he manages to keep his head and remain humble. He becomes friends with another Irish MP, Laurence Fitzgibbon, a glib and somewhat dissolute young man who wastes no time convinces Finn to guarantee a bill for 250 pounds, assuring him that he will have the money in a couple of weeks, and there is nothing to worry about.

He also is befriended by Lady Laura Standish, who takes Phineas under her wing, because she sees such promise in him. She is another character of Trollope’s who illustrates the frustrating position upper class women in Victorian England were in: she is smart and well educated, and she has good ideas about what legislation should be passed by Parliament, but there is no way she can bring them to fruition, given she has no vote, let alone no way to run for parliament. Phineas is convinced he’s in love with Lady Laura and proposes to her, but she turns him down, because he is penniless, and she has given all of her money to her brother, Lord Chiltern, so he can settle some enormous debts he’s acquired through questionable life choices.

Lord Chiltern is a bit of a wild man – he despises social conventions and proper manners, preferring to spend his time hunting and traveling around England and Europe. He is in love with the beautiful Violet Effingham, who stands to inherit a large fortune when she marries. He has proposed to her three times (not very tactfully, it must be said), and she has flatly refused him because of his poor reputation and erratic behavior. To make things worse, Chiltern’s father has had nothing to do with him since his sister squandered her share of the family fortune to settle his obligations.

Lady Laura convinces Phineas to befriend Chiltern, in the hopes that he will be a moderating influence on him. They become friends, until Phineas meets Violet and decides he wants to marry her! The good friends become deadly rivals.

As a backdrop to all of this drama, Trollope chronicles all of the political intrigue involved in the passage of the Reform Bill of 1866. The reader is shown in exhausting detail how parliament works, and, by and large, it’s not pretty. What is interesting is how Finn, as a tyro MP, gradually gains confidence. At first, he is too terrified to even stand up and make a speech. Eventually, he finds his legs, and he becomes a trusted member of the Liberal party, led by the Prime Minister William Mildmay. Finn’s greatest asset is his ability to keep his mouth shut when necessary and to make pleasant conversation with the right people. Very soon, he is elevated to a paying position in the cabinet. Regardless of his rapid rise in society, he remains a very likeable character, due to his total lack of vanity.

As the novel progresses, Trollope uses various characters to illustrate different issues that were present in Victorian England. Phineas is an ambitious, yet talented and altruistic, young man from whose presence parliament would benefit, yet it is nearly impossible from him to affect legislation, even when he is made a government minister. The crisis of the novel occurs when he has to decide whether he will support a bill that will help his fellow Irish but goes against the policy of the governing party, of which he is a member. If he votes according to his conscience, he will be required to submit his resignation and lose his salary.

Lady Laura is the most tragic figure. Moments before Phineas proposes to her, she accepts Robert Kennedy’s offer of marriage. He is another MP, and one of the richest men in the UK. She feels that through him, she might be able to influence English politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Kennedy is an insufferable prig who insists Laura submit herself to the proper duties of a wife and have no independence at all. Their marriage degenerates to the point where they can barely communicate.

“Laura”, he said, “I am sorry that I contradicted you.”

“I am quite used to it, Robert.”

“No; – you are not used to it.” She smiled and lowered her head.
(ii, p. 109, Oxford Univ. Press Ed., 1991)

There is also a Madame Marie Goesler, a wealthy German widow, who moves in the highest circles of London society, but feels trapped by the fact that she can do nothing but attend parties and host them herself.

Phineas becomes very good friends with Joshua Monk, a “radical” MP who helps Phineas get his confidence during his first term in parliament. Mr. Monk, though, when he is offered and accepts a post in the government by the Liberals, loses his effectiveness as a debater, because he is forced to support the Liberals’ policies, even when he disagrees with them.

Trollope paints a fascinating and detailed picture of how politics worked in Victorian England. There was much frustration at the demands placed upon MPS to toe the party line, yet enforcing party discipline was the only way to get important legislation passed. Like today, opposing parties had to compromise, and everyone gave up something to get something in return. Near the end of the book, Monk’s and Finn’s bill to help Irish tenants fails on the second reading. Finn is dejected, but Monk makes this observation:

“Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable; – and so at last it will be ranged on the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”
(ii, p. 341)

Like almost all Victorian novels, Phineas Finn is long – 712 pages in the edition I read. However, it is an interesting complement to Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, another tale of a self-made young man. While Dickens was the master of chronicling the travails and triumphs of England’s lower and middle classes, Trollope gives us accurate portraits of what it was like to move in the highest social strata of Victorian society. He isn’t afraid to point out the contradictions and injustices of the governing class, yet all of his characters are real. Phineas Finn is amazingly successful at first, but he has his flaws. His fellow MPs all exhibit human foibles – they each have good qualities as well as lesser ones. However, it’s the female characters that are the most fleshed out by Trollope – he has sincere sympathy for the plight they are in. They have very limited choices: either marry or be an “old maid”, but in neither case can a woman be an active political force. And once a young woman marries, she has no rights to any property or personal agency. If a young woman is due to inherit wealth, there is no guarantee she will be allowed to use it to live independently. However, lest one think Phineas Finn is all angst and frustration, Trollope sprinkles a lot of humor to leaven the drama. At heart, he loves his country and its people.

There are lots of free digital versions of Phineas Finn (you can download a nicely formatted one here.), but I really appreciated my Oxford University Press edition, because it had lots of helpful notes that explained the political events that were occurring at the time the novel is set in, as well as the meanings of slang phrases, references to other literary works, etc. I’ve read two of the six Palliser novels, so I guess I’d better get ready to tackle Phineas Redux next!