One of the most inveterate and gifted liarsin Victorian fiction, Lizzie Eustace, the heroine of Anthony Trollope's 1873 novelThe Eustace Diamonds, is also one of the most enigmatic. Driven both by her social ambition and by her desire to retain the Eustace family diamonds – a necklace given to her by her late husband but claimed by his relatives as an heirloom – Lizzie depends on deceit to achieve her ends throughout the novel. Yet, her reliance on mendacity becomes perplexingly excessive, confusing not only her sycophantic companion, Julia Macnulty, but most of the story's other characters as well.