Can You Forgive Her? is the first of the six Palliser novels.

Trollope inextricably binds together the issues of parliamentary election and marriage, of politics and privacy. The values and aspirations of the governing stratum of Victorian society are ruthlessly examined and none remains unscathed. But it is above all on the predicament of women that Trollope focuses. 'What should a woman do with her life?' asks Alice Vavasor of herself, and this theme is echoed by every other woman in the novel, from the uncomfortably married Lady Glencora to the coquettish Mrs. Greenow and Alice's clear-headed cousin Kate.

Anthony Trollope (1815-82) published his first novel in 1847. It was in 1855 that he published The Warden, the first of his most famous series, the Barsetshire novels.

Timothy West, CBE, has had a long and distinguished career on stage, appearing in the Royal National Theatre's acclaimed production of King Lear, as Falstaff in both parts of Henry IV, and on tour in The Birthday Party, The Master Builder and The External. On TV, he has been in Bleak House, New Tricks, Bedtime, Waking the Dead and Colditz, while his films include Cry Freedom, Ever After and Joan of Arc.