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The Trials of Lizzie Eustace: Trollope, Sensationalism, and the Condition of English Law

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ian Ward

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This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2016.

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Abstract

The Eustace Diamonds was published in 1872. It was the third of Anthony Trollope's famed Palliser series. It represented, however, something of a diversion, telling the story of the cunning' Lizzie Eustace who declines to return a priceless diamond necklace to the estate of her recently deceased husband. Critics have supposed that The Eustace Diamonds can be read as a contribution to the contemporary genre of sensation' novels. Sensation novels were full of sex, crime, and scheming young women like Lizzie Eustace. The law should of course have brought to Lizzie to justice. But it does not; indeed it barely tries. For the law in The Eustace Diamonds, as in so many sensation' novels, is conspicuous only in a failure that is as metaphorical in purpose as it is prosaic.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Ward I

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Law and Society

Year: 2016

Volume: 43

Issue: 1

Pages: 66-84

Print publication date: 01/03/2016

Online publication date: 03/02/2016

Acceptance date: 03/02/2016

Date deposited: 29/09/2016

ISSN (print): 0263-323X

ISSN (electronic): 1467-6478

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2016.00741.x

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6478.2016.00741.x

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