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  • Published: 28 April 1994
  • ISBN: 9780140433920
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 816
  • RRP: $22.99

The Way We Live Now




A radical exploration of the dangers associated with speculative capitalism, this is a fascinating satire about a society on the verge of moral bankruptcy.

Augustus Melmotte is a fraudulent foreign financier who preys on dissolute nobility - using charm to tempt the weak into making foolish investments in his dubious schemes. Persuaded to put money into a notional plot to run a railroad from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, the capricious gambler Felix Carbury soon becomes one of his victims. But as Melmotte climbs higher in society, his web of deceit - which also draws in characters as diverse as his own daughter Marie and Felix's mother, the pulp novelist Lady Carbury - begins to unravel. A radical exploration of the dangers associated with speculative capitalism, this is a fascinating satire about a society on the verge of moral bankruptcy.

  • Published: 28 April 1994
  • ISBN: 9780140433920
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 816
  • RRP: $22.99

About the authors

Robert Manne

Robert Manne is emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University. His books include The Petrov Affair, The Culture of Forgetting, Left, Right, Left: Political Essays 1977–2005, Making Trouble and The Mind of the Islamic State. He has written three Quarterly Essays and is a regular contributor to the Monthly and the Guardian.

Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope (1815 – 1882) was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire. He also wrote perceptive novels on political, social, and gender issues, and on other topical matters.