Nina Balatka:

Nina, a poor Catholic, is engaged to Anton, a rich Jew. At the beginning of the story their engagement is a secret until Anton can obtain the title deeds of certain properties including the house Nina and her father live in. These are rightfully his, but are in the possession of Nina's uncle. This alone set off alarm bells for me: Trollope's heroes never priorities monetary transactions above true love. Later in the story Anton makes it clear twice that he suspects Nina might be deceiving him and twice she is outraged and twice she forgives him. This is, of course deeply annoying, but also problematic to me in the context of Trollope's work generally: his non-Jewish heroes would never act in this way - above all it would be "ungentlemanly".

Since Nina and Anton get their happy ending, I assume that Trollope intends to be sympathetic to their "mixed" marriage, but he nevertheless clings to many unflattering "Jewish" stereotypes. In fairness, I suppose I should point out that Nina's Christian relatives are uniformly hideous too (and not particularly clean, amusingly). The Catholic priests are treated reasonably kindly. In case it is not clear, I would NEVER have forgiven Anton myself.

On the plus side, the description of life in Prague was interesting and well-done. I found Rebecca's character inconsistent and cloying towards the end. The scene where Nina contemplates suicide was well-done, but long; by the end I just wanted her to jump and get it over with.

Linda Tressel:

Linda lives with her aunt Charlotte and their lodger, Peter. Ludovic, a cousin of Peter's has told Linda that he loves her, but she has made no reply. Charlotte and Peter hatch a plan that Peter should marry Nina, despite the fact that she is 20 and he is 51. Nina refuses Peter and tells him she can never love him. The rest of the novel consists of Charlotte telling Nina that it is her duty to marry Peter and Nina giving in at last but then backing out (three times - or maybe only twice - it all blurs together). At one point Nina even runs away with Ludovic, but repents of this immediately and returns to her aunt for more of the same. The ending was completely dreadful (but perhaps typical for the period). Peter was splendidly hateful, Charlotte claimed to love her niece but did not one single loving thing to or for her and Nina was so spineless and passive that it was hard to root for her. Possibly the most repetitive Trollope I have read (or maybe that was "Lady Anna"). ( )

In Linda Tressel, Trollope once more describes a male character made more determined to marry a woman who despises him, out of desire for mastery. Like a character in the Eustace Diamonds, Linda escapes into madness.