In a London of fast money and fragile reputations, a fabulously wealthy financier named Melmotte arrives from nowhere, and society falls at his feet. Anthony Trollope’s novel is a furious, funny and unsparing look at greed, speculation and the readiness of respectable people to ignore what they would rather not know. It moves through newspaper offices, clubs, country houses and ballrooms, and into a large family, the Carburys, who have their own problems of money and marriage. The satire is broad, but the characters are drawn with Trollope’s characteristic understanding. A hundred recordings, nearly thirty-four hours, for those who wish to settle into one of the great novels of the Victorian age. With its large cast and its many twists, the book gives listeners a world to live in over many weeks of listening.
Introduction
The Way We Live Now is a satirical novel by Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), published in London in 1875 after a popular serialisation. Many of Trollope’s contemporaries regarded it as his finest work. It is also one of his longest, with a hundred chapters, and it is particularly remarkable for its portrait of financial speculation and of the corruption that it breeds.
The book is set in the world of the English upper and middle classes, and it takes aim at a society in which money seems to count for more than character. A mysterious financier is welcomed by those who hope to profit from him, and the novel follows the effects on the many people drawn into his orbit. Alongside the financial plot are several stories of love and marriage, and these allow Trollope to explore what is owed to parents, to children and to oneself.
Trollope’s strength is the variety and humanity of his characters. Even the worst are given some measure of sympathy, and even the best are shown with flaws. The pace is steady, and the book is happiest when it allows its many threads to run in parallel.
The recording is read by a LibriVox volunteer and has a hundred files, one for each chapter, running to nearly thirty-four hours. It is a long listen, but a rewarding one, especially for readers who enjoy Victorian fiction and social satire.
Public domain
Anthony Trollope died in 1882: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
