This study relates Trollope to the broad Victorian culture to which he offered a distinctive, creative response. It looks particularly at the nature and quality of his political intelligence and at his grasp of processes of manipulation, personal interaction, media exploitation and the integration of the private and the public. It also assesses Trollope's continuing popularity as a writer - outselling many of his more critically 'esteemed' contemporaries in the late-twentieth-century and offers a lucid and comprehensive introduction to the full range of Trollope's popular works.