Can You Forgive Her? #622133

Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope is a novel by Anthony Trollope, first published in serial form in 1864 and 1865. It is the first of six novels in the Palliser series, also known as the Parliamentary Novels.

The novel follows three parallel stories of courtship and marriage and the decisions of three women: Alice Vavasor, her cousin Glencora Palliser, and her aunt Arabella Greenow. Early on, Alice asks the question "What should a woman do with her life?" This theme repeats itself in the dilemmas faced by the other women in the novel. Lady Glencora and her husband Plantagenet Palliser recur in the remainder of the series.

Alice Vavasor, a young woman of twenty-four, is engaged to the wealthy, respectable, dependable if unambitious and bland, John Grey. She had previously been engaged to her cousin George, but she broke it off after he went through a wild period. John, trusting in his love, makes only the slightest protest of Alice’s planned tour of Switzerland with her cousin Kate, George's sister, even when he learns George is to go with them as their male protector. Influenced by the romance of Switzerland, Kate's contriving to restore George to Alice's favour, and her own misgivings with John's shortcomings, Alice jilts her second fiancé.

Alice's noble but despised relations are shocked, but their protests only strengthen Alice's resolve, and she eventually renews her engagement to George, who seems charismatic, ambitious and alluring, in contrast to John.

She respects his honesty in acknowledging in his letter proposing their marriage that her money would support his parliamentary ambitions, and she tells him that he can draw on her funds even before they marry. Ever attentive to Alice's welfare, John secretly pays the money instead.