The Way We Live Now

In this world of bribes and vendettas, swindling and suicide, in which heiresses are won like gambling stakes, Trollope's characters embody all the vices: Lady Carbury, a 43-year-old coquette, 'false from head to foot'; her son Felix, with the 'instincts of a horse, not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog'; and Melmotte, the colossal figure who dominates the book, a 'horrid, big, rich scoundrel...a bloated swindler...a vile city ruffian'.

The Way we Live Now belongs neither to the Barsetshire nor to the political series of novels for which Trollope is most widely known, but its power, scope, and the moral passion inspiring it make it in some ways his greatest. It is a forceful attack upon dishonesty of every kind, and upon false values - upon the worship of money and of success. The central character, Lady Carbury, a beautiful but unprincipled woman, exploits every means in her power to advance the interests of her son, an equally unscrupulous young man, who hopes to restore his fortunes by marrying the daughter of Augustus Melmotte, a swindling financier. Trollope was an accurate social observer with a gift for satirical characterization, and The Way we Live Now, first published serially from February, 1874, to September, 1875, gives an unrivalled picture of the London of that period when the fever of speculation was at its height.