Phineas Finn

Phineas Finn is an Irish M.P.A. climbing the political ladder, largely through the assistance of his string of lovers. The questions he is forced to ask himself about honesty, independence, and parliamentary democracy are questions still asked today.

Phineas Finn is the second of Anthony Trollope's six Palliser novels. While each is a story within itself, together the volumes comprise a large, coherent composition that captures the fashions, slang, manners, and politics of two decades. Beginning with this segment of the Palliser novels, Trollope painted an unrivaled portrait of Parliamentary political society in the high Victorian period. Trollope's understanding of the institutions of mid-Victorian England and the unobtrusive irony which informs his sympathetic vision of human fallibility is a hallmark of these stories.