I skipped ahead a little in my journey through Trollope’s bibliography and moved on to The Way We Live Now, as my friend was reading this book too. This is one of my absolute favourites and, aside from The Palliser series, probably his most famous, and definitely his longest. This will be at the very least my third read of this book.

First published in serialised form in twenty monthly installments, starting in February 1874, it was one of the last Victorian novels to be published in this way, the book was then released complete in two volumes in June 1875

An epic saga and satirical novel, The Way We Live Now follows the story of the impoverished widow, Lady Carbury, who is trying to eke out a living for herself by writing novels, her reprobate spendthrift son, Sir Felix on whom she dotes, and her hard done by, wallflower, daughter, Hetta.

Sir Felix who has spent what little of his own money he ever had and then some, spends his time gambling and drinking into the early hours with his friends at his club, the Beargarden, running up debts he cannot pay, and leeching from his mother. Lady Carbury’s solution to this is for him to woo and win the heiress of the day, Marie Melmotte, whose father is thought to have limitless pockets. For her daughter, Lady Carbury’s hopes lay with her cousin, the kindly and righteous Roger Carbury, who holds the family manor and is hopelessly in love with Hetta, who sadly does not return his love in the way that he would desire.

In the background to all this are the mysterious and fabulously rich Melmotte family, recently moved to London, and buying their way into the highest society they can, and the great fraud of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, of which Mr Melmotte becomes a director, and various other of the characters also become entangled with.

One of these unfortunates is Dolly Longstaffe, a friend of Sir Felix Carbury, whose family are involved in a side plot of this story. The family consists of Dolly himself, his father, mother and two sisters, Sophia and Georgiana. Sophia is engaged to be married but her older and rather past her prime sister, Georgiana is still try to find herself a husband. The family have found themselves in some financial difficulties and as a result, Mr Longstaffe decrees that they will remain in their country estate, rather than open their London house for the season. Fearing she will never find herself a husband by remaining in the country, she finds herself the guest of the Melmotte’s in their Lavish London home. To resolve their financial difficulties, the elder Mr Longstaffe agrees to sell one of their properties to Mr Melmotte, against the wishes of Dolly who has a financial stake in the property. When the money for the sale is not forthcoming, and Dolly swears that he never agreed to the sale in the first place, the downfall of Melmotte begins.

Another side plot focuses on Paul Montague, a friend of Roger Carbury and also in love with Hetta. Paul has a stake in the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway and a romantic history with an American widow, Mrs Hurtle, who follows him to London to hold him to his promises, after he breaks off their engagement on learning some disturbing news about her past.

Will anyone win the heiress, is she in fact an heiress at all, who will win Hetta’s affections and with Georgiana find herself a husband? You will have to read the book for yourself to find out, or watch the 2001 BBC TV series starring Cillian Murphy, David Suchet, Matthew Macfadyen and Shirley Henderson.

The Way We Live Now is available for the grand sum of £0.49 on Kindle