Alpha Book

In the circles of Trollope's
characters, only the wealthy could afford to marry for love; those
without wealth had to marry for money, sometimes with disastrous
consequences. By the time of _Nina_, Trollope's best exploration of
this subject was the marriage between Plantagenet Palliser and Lady
Glencora M'Cluskie, the former a cold fish and the latter a hot-blooded
heiress in love with a penniless scoundrel (_Can You Forgive Her?_
1865). Yet to come was the disastrous marriage of intelligent Lady
Laura Standish to the wealthy but old-maidish Robert Kennedy in _Phineas
Finn_ and its sequel.
But _Nina Balatka_ is different from Trollope's previous novels in four
respects. First, Trollope was accustomed to include in his novels his
own witty editorial comments about various subjects, often paragraphs or
even several pages long. No such comments are found in _Nina_. Second,
the story is set in Prague instead of the British isles. Third, the
hero and heroine are already in love and engaged to one another at
the opening; we are not told any details about their falling in love.


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