Can You Forgive Her?

Alice Vavasor has chosen John Grey, a wealthy and dependable man whose steadiness should make marriage safe. Yet safety does not answer the question troubling her: what should a woman do with her life? Anthony Trollope's Can You Forgive Her? places that uncertainty beside the courtship decisions of Alice's cousin Glencora Palliser and her aunt Arabella Greenow.

Alice had once been engaged to her cousin George before his reckless conduct ended the match. A journey through Switzerland brings him back into her company under the encouragement of his sister Kate. John trusts Alice enough to allow the tour, but his restraint also sharpens her doubts about a future she fears may be respectable and emotionally narrow.

The three parallel stories turn marriage into a decision shaped by desire, security, money, family pressure, and the limited forms of action available to Victorian women. Alice's hesitation is neither treated as a simple failure of loyalty nor detached from its consequences. As the opening Palliser novel, the book also introduces Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser, whose marriage continues through the series. Its central tension lies in the difficulty of judging a choice before knowing whether freedom, affection, and responsibility can coexist within it.