Lord Palmerston

Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 375K words
Chapters: 38

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Lord Palmerston by Anthony TrollopeAuthor: Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Sep 29, 2017

Editor's review

This is Anthony Trollope's biography of Lord Palmerston, with the English original released free of charge by Project Gutenberg. Trollope is best known as a novelist, yet he brings the same readability to a political biography: the prose is clear, the pacing steady, and he is skilled at sketching character and period atmosphere alongside the narrative of a political career. The book belongs to British history, and serves well as supplementary reading for understanding nineteenth-century British politics and parliamentary practice, or as a sample of Victorian biographical writing. It need not be treated as a work of academic scholarship; it is better suited as an introductory character study with a clear thread. Since this is a public-domain electronic text, notes and a chronology may be limited; for key events and personal relationships, reading alongside a general history of British politics or a chronological table is recommended to fill in the background.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General history readers interested in nineteenth-century British political history and parliamentary institutions
Literary readers who enjoy Trollope and want to see his non-fiction writing
English learners who need public-domain English material for biography reading practice
Organizers choosing books on British history for general-education courses or reading groups

Not a good fit for

Specialist history researchers expecting systematic academic scholarship and detailed notes
Readers who only want Trollope's novels and have no interest in his political writing
Beginners who struggle with English reading and would only start with a Chinese translation at hand

Reading tips

Start with a chronology of Palmerston's life; reading the biography against a timeline makes the people and events much clearer.
After each chapter, summarize his political stance and the key events in two or three sentences to keep the thread from scattering.
Read alongside a general history of nineteenth-century British politics, consulting it whenever institutional terms come up.
For language study, read closely the passages describing character, to appreciate Trollope's narrative craft.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this biography written by Trollope?

According to the source, the author is Anthony Trollope (1815–1882), an English novelist who also wrote biographies of political figures. The original English title is Lord Palmerston, released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook, so the full text is freely available.

Do I need to know British political history before reading?

You don't need to study it systematically first, but a basic grasp of nineteenth-century British parliamentary politics will noticeably ease the reading. It is advisable to skim a chronology of Palmerston's life and key events before starting, and to look up unfamiliar institutional terms as you go.

Does the electronic edition include notes and a chronology?

Public-domain ebooks usually consist mainly of the text, and notes or a chronology may be minimal or missing. For a deeper understanding of the background, read alongside a general history of British politics, a biographical chronology, or encyclopedia entries, treating the electronic text as the main narrative and the reference material as supplement.

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About the author

Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882 Author

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) was a prolific English novelist of the Victorian era, with 83 works held in this collection. He is best known for the Barsetshire novels, including The Last Chronicle of Barset, Barchester Towers, and Framley Parsonage, which are set in a fictional English county and portray the daily life, social manners, and power struggles of the clergy and gentry. Other major works, such as The Way We Live Now, The Prime Minister, Orley Farm, and Can You Forgive Her?, turn to politics, business, and marriage, revealing with careful restraint and gentle irony the tension between social convention and personal ambition. Public information is limited, yet his plain narrative style, large casts of clearly drawn characters, and depiction of Victorian social structure retain lasting value for readers.