The Way We Live Now Av Anthony Trollope

<p><i>The Way We Live Now</i> is Anthony Trollope''s radical exploration of the dangers associated with speculative capitalism, edited with an introduction and notes by Frank Kermode in Penguin Classics.<br><br>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.<br><br>Frank Kermode''s introduction explores the real-life inspiration for Trollope''s mast