The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope (1880)

What parents do not build castles in the air for their children? We want them to grow up to be happy, certainly, and we think we know exactly how that can be accomplished. We imagine just the kind of spouses they should choose, the brilliant careers they should follow, the admiration they should attract from friends and society for their accomplishments and wise life choices. Maybe the tiniest bit of our dreams for them stems from our prideful knowledge of the glory to be reflected upon us as exemplary parents.

There is just one problem -- the children seldom have the same ideas as the parents about what constitutes happiness. They never seem to follow our fine plans. In this last novel of Trollope's Palliser series, Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium, suffers the common fate of parents -- his almost-grown-up children persist in making their own decisions about life and love.

The Duke's two sons both get into trouble at university and into money trouble with gambling; his oldest son goes into politics (as the Duke had wished) but chooses to stand for Parliament as part of the wrong political party; his daughter chooses to engage herself for marriage to a commoner without money rather than to a rich aristocrat; and his oldest son chooses to engage himself to (GASP) an American. What's a father to do?

Trollope fondly follows the Duke as he attempts to deal with his wayward children. In the beginning, he attempts to dictate that they will follow his will, which in those days it was still possible for a parent to do. In the end, of course, love conquers all: the Duke discovers that he loves his children enough to let them go to make their own choices.

It would be impossible for a parent of grown-up children to dislike this novel because it is so true to life. The Duke seems entirely real as he struggles to accept that his dreams and values are not the same as his children's. Of all Trollope's major characters he is the most believable and admirable, and, I think, must have been Trollope's favorite.

Highly recommended.