The Way We Live Now

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope is a satirical novel by Anthony Trollope, published in London in 1875 after first appearing in serialised form. It is one of the last significant Victorian novels to have been published in monthly parts.

The novel is Trollope's longest, comprising 100 chapters, and is particularly rich in sub-plot. It was inspired by the financial scandals of the early 1870s; Trollope had just returned to England from abroad, and was appalled by the greed and dishonesty those scandals exposed. This novel was his rebuke. It dramatised how such greed and dishonesty pervaded the commercial, political, moral, and intellectual life of that era.

Trollope began writing The Way We Live Now on May 1, 1873, five months after returning from an extended trip to Australia and New Zealand. He paused work in order to write the shorter novel Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, a Christmas novel he had already promised his publisher, but he resumed work on The Way We Live Now by July. It was completed on 22 December 1873, and the first of twenty monthly installments was published by Chapman & Hall beginning in February 1874.

Chapman & Hall had purchased the rights for both the serialisation and the full novel for £3,000. However, the serialisation sold badly, prompting the publisher to release the full novel in a two volume form in June 1875, four months before the serialisation was set to finish. The two volume first editions were large octavos occupied by the unsold pages from the serialised printings.

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