The Way We Live Now

"A wonderful, melodramatic tale-of-the-times, by a master of his craft. It begins in satire and finally resolves into entertaining social comedy." -The Guardian

A classic satirical novel by the author of the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, The Way We Live Now was inspired by the financial scandals of the early 1870s and skewers the pervading dishonesty of the age-commercial, political, moral, and intellectual.

"One of the last examples of the three-volume serialized Victorian novel. If the genre seems nearly as alien to contemporary American readers as the Renaissance epic poem, the world that Trollope portrays is not so remote. Trollope's London is a satirical distortion of the city that he found upon returning from eighteen months of overseas travel: the luxurious center of a vast empire floating on limitless credit, a society defined entirely by commercial interest, a hothouse of financial speculation and status competition, a place where relationships have become purely transactional. . . . Trollope has the advantage of being unafraid, which gives his social criticism its vivid power. This, he tells us, is what extremely civilized people become when the money gets too big." -The New Yorker

"Recognized as Trollope's masterpiece . . . As a savage commentary on mid-Victorian England by a marvelously addictive writer steeped in every aspect of an extraordinary society, it could hardly be bettered." -The Guardian