"What a villain you are ... a villain and a poor weak silly fool. She was too good for
you."
Engaged to the ambitious and self-serving Adolphus Crosbie, Lily Dale is devastated when
he jilts her for the aristocratic Lady Alexandrina. Although crushed by his faithlessness,
Lily still believes she is bound to her unworthy former fiancé for life and therefore
condemned to remain single after his betrayal. And when a more deserving suitor pays his
addresses, she is unable to see past her feelings for Crosbie. Written when Trollope was at
the height of his popularity, The Small House at Allington contains his most admired
heroine in Lily Dale - a young woman of independent spirit who nonetheless longs to be loved
- and is a moving dramatization of the ways in which personal dilemmas are affected by
social pressures.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the
eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
