Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds (1872) is the third of the six Palliser novels and one of his finest books of any kind — a glittering social satire wrapped around a jewel mystery, and a study of charming dishonesty to set beside Thackeray's Becky Sharp.

At its centre is Lizzie Greystock — beautiful, clever, penniless, and entirely without scruple — who snares the sickly Sir Florian Eustace, is widowed within the year, and emerges a very rich young woman. Among the property she carries off is a diamond necklace worth ten thousand pounds, a family heirloom her late husband had given her to wear. The Eustace lawyers say it belongs to the estate and must pass to her infant son; Lizzie insists it was an outright gift, and will not give it up. She lies about the terms, lies about where the diamonds are, lies even when the lie can do her no good — and the whole long machinery of the novel is set turning by her refusal to let go.

Around the contested necklace Trollope builds a wide comedy of courtship and crime: a dull, honourable lord who breaks with her over the scandal; a caddish cousin torn between Lizzie's glamour and a true-hearted governess; a sham-Byronic adventurer Lizzie casts as her corsair; two robberies, one of them brilliantly not what it seems; and a famous Scotland Yard detective. But Trollope spoils his own mystery on purpose: the real suspense is never who took the diamonds, but how far a charming liar can go before the world she has gulled finally tires of her.

Told in the most companionable narrator's voice in English fiction, The Eustace Diamonds is the best place to enjoy Trollope's wit at full stretch — and it stands completely on its own, the recurring Palliser characters kept to the background.

This edition presents the complete public-domain text of the 1872 novel in clean, readable typesetting prepared for the modern e-reader.