The Way We Live Now (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) - Softcover

Trollope, Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486815765 ISBN 13: 9780486815763

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2017

Synopsis

Inspired by the financial scandals of its era, The Way We Live Now is a portrait of a society corrupted by greed that continues to resonate with modern readers. Taking place in 1870s Victorian London, the characters are comprised of a motley cast of financiers, investors, and determined social-climbers.
Despite rumors of an unsavory past, Augustus Melmotte is so vastly wealthy that the London society receives him with open arms. In addition to furthering his schemes of railway fraud, the ruthless financier's entry into society launches his daughter into the matrimonial market. Her preferred suitor, Sir Felix Carbury, is a penniless wastrel whose mother aspires to literary and financial success not so much by writing good books but by using her feminine charms to get ahead. A host of other bounders and rogues populate the pages of this tale, which begins as a satire and concludes as a delicious social comedy. Rejected by critics upon its 1875 publication, The Way We Live Now is recognized today as Anthony Trollope's masterpiece.

About this title

Review:

Trollope's 1875 tale of a great financier's fraudulent machinations in the railway business, and his daughter's ill-use at the hands of a grasping lover (for whom she steals funds in order to elope) is a classic in the literature of money and a ripping good read as well.

From the Inside Flap:

"Trollope did not write for posterity," observed Henry James. "He wrote for the day, the moment; but these are just the writers whom posterity is apt to put into its pocket." Considered by contemporary critics to be Trollope's greatest novel, The Way We Live Now is a satire of the literary world of London in the 1870s and a bold indictment of the new power of speculative finance in English life. "I was instigated by what I conceived to be the commercial profligacy of the age," Trollope said.
   His story concerns Augustus Melmotte, a French swindler and scoundrel, and his daughter, to whom Felix Carbury, adored son of the authoress Lady Carbury, is induced to propose marriage for the sake of securing a fortune. Trollope knew well the difficulties of dealing with editors, publishers, reviewers, and the public; his portrait of Lady Carbury, impetuous, unprincipled, and unswervingly devoted to her own self-promotion, is one of his finest satirical achievements.
   His picture of late nineteenth century England is of a society on the verge of moral bankruptcy, where the traditional virtues of Tory squirearchy, represented by Roger Carbury, prove to be no match for the financial genius of Augustus Melmotte. In The Way We Live Now Trollope combines his talents as a portraitist and his skills as a storyteller to give us life as it was lived more than a hundred years ago.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0486815765
• ISBN 13: 9780486815763
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 832