Well, Plantagenet did surprise me, and favorably, about three-quarters of the way through, and I felt quite a soft spot for him before he reverted to norm.

I expect it's just having read fanfiction that made me think Alice and Glencora should abandon their unsatisfactory suitors and spouse and run off to the Welsh hills to set up housekeeping like the Ladies of Llangollen. But really they did seem to see each other more clearly and like each other more honestly than they saw or liked any of the men in the books, or any of the men saw and liked them.

Tell me about the Ladies of Llangollen.

There's a real sense in Trollope that women are, in general, clearer-sighted and more honest with themselves (and sometimes one another) than men.

The Ladies of Llangollen were two Irish gentlewomen, Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, who fled their unhappy home lives for a Welsh cottage in the late eighteenth century. They turned their home into a fairly fashionable retreat, were popular with the local society, and lived together for, IIRC, forty or fifty years. The biography of them by Elizabeth Mavor says they weren't lovers, although it was widely rumored they were.

And I'd really like some old kinky Wonder Woman comics -- like from the 1940s.

They are collected in hardbound form and in print. Also, they were reprinted in the back of DC annuals in the 70s.

Didn't they "reprint" recently? Like, last year or so?

DC Comics' website has a video interview with Neil Gaiman.

I love the Barchester novels best, esp. the early ones in which Mrs. Proudie is still wreaking havoc. I've read the Palliser novels but none of them really stuck with me. That said, Trollope is still my favourite Victorian author for entertainment reading - he wins out over everything Dickens and all of Eliot except Middlemarch.

Nutty, I found the abstract for that JAMA study on PubMed. I don't think you can link directly to search results so here it is:

Dating violence against adolescent girls and associated substance use, unhealthy weight control, sexual risk behavior, pregnancy, and suicidality.

Silverman JG, Raj A, Mucci LA, Hathaway JE.

JAMA. 2001 Aug 1;286(5):572-9.

CONTEXT: Intimate partner violence against women is a major public health concern. Research among adults has shown that younger age is a consistent risk factor for experiencing and perpetrating intimate partner violence. However, no representative epidemiologic studies of lifetime prevalence of dating violence among adolescents have been conducted. OBJECTIVE: To assess lifetime prevalence of physical and sexual violence from dating partners among adolescent girls and associations of these forms of violence with specific health risks. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Female 9th through 12th-grade students who participated in the 1997 and 1999 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (n = 1977 and 2186, respectively). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Lifetime prevalence rates of physical and sexual dating violence and whether such violence is independently associated with substance use, unhealthy weight control, sexual risk behavior, pregnancy, and suicidality. RESULTS: Approximately 1 in 5 female students (20.2% in 1997 and 18.0% in 1999) reported being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. After controlling for the effects of potentially confounding demographics and risk behaviors, data from both surveys indicate that physical and sexual dating violence against adolescent girls is associated with increased risk of substance use (eg, cocaine use for 1997, odds ratio [OR], 4.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.3-9.6; for 1999, OR, 3.4; 95% CI, 1.7-6.7), unhealthy weight control behaviors (eg, use of laxatives and/or vomiting [for 1997, OR, 3.2; 95% CI, 1.8-5.5; for 1999, OR, 3.7; 95% CI, 2.2-6.5]), sexual risk behaviors (eg, first intercourse before age 15 years [for 1997, OR, 8.2; 95% CI, 5.1-13.4; for 1999, OR, 2.4; 95% CI, 1.4-4.2]), pregnancy (for 1997, OR, 6.3; 95% CI, 3.4-11.7; for 1999, OR, 3.9; 95% CI, 1.9-7.8), and suicidality (eg, attempted suicide [for 1997, OR, 7.6; 95% CI, 4.7-12.3; for 1999, OR, 8.6; 95% CI, 5.2-14.4]). CONCLUSION: Dating violence is extremely prevalent among this population, and adolescent girls who report a history of experiencing dating violence are more likely to exhibit other serious health risk behaviors.

Searched ebay and answered my own question. Exact reproductions were released in 2000.

Nebbermind.

I am the anti!Dani. For years I resisted reading Trollope because I found the Barchester novels so dull. Then a friend said "Try The Eustace Diamonds. It's all about Sin In High Life." I did, and I was hooked.

Trollope understands women and outsiders deeply. And he explains them to you. It is fascinating to listen to him explain what a mortal insult it is to accuse a man of lying, and precisely how close you can get to that line without saying something unforgivable.

And Betsy makes a liar out of me by reminding me that I did enjoy The Eustace Diamonds, mostly because of Lady Eustace.

Also, I wore cutoffs over tights with cowboy boots (?!&$!) in university. The only excuses I can offer are that it was the late 80's, and I lived in a cold climate. It was apparently very important to us to extend the shorts-wearing season.

Lady Eustace is a fine, fine character.

Hey, I wore legwarmers with skirts in the '80s. If you'd been in Hanover, New Hampshire going to a job interview in midwinter, so would you.