Marketed as "polite literature" during their initial publication, the novels encompass several literary genres including: family saga, bildungsroman, picaresque, as well as satire and parody of Victorian (or English) life, and criticism of the British government's predilection for attracting corrupt and corruptible people to power.
In his autobiography he wrote:[1] To carry out my scheme I have had to spread my picture over so wide a canvas that I cannot expect that any lover of such art should trouble himself to look at it as a whole.
First introduced as a minor character in The Small House at Allington, one of the Barsetshire novels, Palliser is the heir presumptive to the Duke of Omnium.
However, upon inheriting the dukedom, he is forced to relinquish the beloved post, as it is against constitutional convention for a member of the House of Lords to hold it.
When the Liberals form a government some years later at the end of The Duke's Children, he accepts a cabinet post as Lord President of the Council.
He is replaced as First Lord of the Admiralty by Phineas Finn and as Leader of the House of Commons by Joshua Monk, who concurrently retains his post as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The serial was narrated by David Troughton as Trollope, with Ben Miles as Plantagenet Palliser and Sophie Thompson as Lady Glencora.
A secondary character, Colette Bing, marries Lucien Plantagenet Montagu-Scott, Earl of Palliser, son of the Duke of Glencora, whose family seat is located in Barchester in the county of Barsetshire.