Publisher's Synopsis
After the sudden death of his wife, two years after he has left office as Prime Minister, the Duke of Omnium must
become deeply involved with his children for the first time. They vex him enormously: with school expulsions,
vast gambling debts, and what he considers to be calamitous romantic attachments. He tries to compel them to
do what he wants, but they are not so easy to manage.
Duke grapples with heartache. For Silverbridge becomes a Conservative rather than a Liberal, flouting the family
tradition. The relationship between father and son is drawn with remarkable subtlety, and the book as a whole
becomes a piercing, yet often humorous, exploration of change: how both the young and the old resist, tolerate,
or embrace it.
