Sutherland concludes from his study that Trollope’s own account of his methods of work, as we have it in the Autobiography, is put in question by the evidence of his working materials for this novel.

The Way We Live Now was the fifth of Trollope’s novels to be published in parts, by this time a rare procedure. In June 1875, three months before the part-publication was finished, the publisher, Chapman & Hall, brought out the two-volume first edition at 21s. It was made up of the parts. The publishers rushed it out because they had already assigned the copyright to Chatto & Windus, a firm specializing in cheaper reprints, for £300, and a 6s. rival could be expected before the end of the year. Chatto subsequently published several editions in descending price ranges, some much reduced in bulk from the two-volume edition. The impetus of the book, never exceptionally strong, was eventually exhausted, and the book was out of print for many years. Its reputation as the greatest of Trollope’s novels began just as Chatto’s

stock finally ran out, with Michael Sadleir’s Commentary of 1928. Sutherland concludes from his examination of the accounts that neither Chapman & Hall nor Chatto & Windus, did very well out of The Way We Live Now, though Trollope, pocketing his £3,000, certainly did.

It is not probable that Trollope gave much attention to the text, at any rate after the proofs of the parts, but somebody in Chatto’s office corrected a few errors in the Chapman & Hall edition. Others have been corrected by Robert Tracy in his edition (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1974). I have incorporated some but not all of Tracy’s emendations; some of them had already been made by Chatto, and, as he demonstrates, by the publishers of the first American edition and the European edition of Tauchnitz. Some I think unnecessary (for example, ‘missels’ in Chapter 40 is an old variant of ‘trestles’ and need not be changed).

I am grateful to Professor Sutherland for much help with this edition.

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

CONTENTS

1 Three Editors 7

2 The Carbury Family 15

3 The Beargarden 23

4 Madame Melmotte’s Ball 29

5 After the Ball 41

6 Roger Carbury and Paul Montague 44

7 Mentor 53

8 Love-sick 60

9 The Great Railway to Vera Cruz 66

10 Mr Fisker’s Success 74

11 Lady Carbury at Home 83

12 Sir Felix in his Mother’s House 93

13 The Longestaffes 98

14 Carbury Manor 107

15 ‘You Should Remember that I am his Mother’ 114

16 The Bishop and the Priest 122

17 Marie Melmotte Hears a Love Tale 132

18 Ruby Ruggles Hears a Love Tale 141

19 Hetta Carbury Hears a Love Tale 146

20 Lady Pomona’s Dinner-Party 155

21 Everybody Goes to Them 160

22 Lord Nidderdale’s Morality 170

23 ‘Yes, I’m a Baronet’ 177

24 Miles Grendall’s Triumph 186

25 In Grosvenor Square 193

26 Mrs Hurtle 199

27 Mrs Hurtle Goes to the Play 208

28 Dolly Longestaffe Goes into the City 217

29 Miss Melmotte’s Courage 222

30 Mr Melmotte’s Promise 229

31 Mr Broune Has Made up his Mind 237

32 Lady Monogram 244

33 John Crumb 252

34 Ruby Ruggles Obeys her Grandfather 262

35 Melmotte’s Glory 267

36 Mr Broune’s Perils 275

37 The Board-room 280

38 Paul Montague’s Troubles 291

39 ‘I do love Him’ 298

40 Unanimity is the Very Soul of these Things 308

41 All Prepared 313

42 ‘Can You Ready in Ten Minutes?’ 318

43 The City Road 327

44 The Coming Election 337

45 Mr Melmotte is Pressed for Time 344

46 Roger Carbury and his Two Friends 351

47 Mrs Hurtle at Lowestoffe 359

48 Ruby a Prisoner 369

49 Sir Felix Makes Himself Ready 374

50 The Journey to Liverpool 381

51 Which Shall It Be? 389

52 The Results of Love and Wine 397

53 A Day in the City 404

54 ‘The India Office’ 413

55 Clerical Charities 422

56 Father Barham Visits London 427

57 Lord Nidderdale Tries his Hand Again 435

58 Mr Squercum is Employed 442

59 The Dinner 450

60 Miss Longestaffe’s Lover 457

61 Lady Monogram Prepares for the Party 465

62 The Party 469

63 Mr Melmotte on the Day of the Election 480

64 The Election 487

65 Miss Longestaffe Writes Home 496

66 ‘So Shall Be my Enmity’ 502

67 Sir Felix Protects his Sister 510

68 Miss Melmotte Declares her Purpose 516

69 Melmotte in Parliament 523

70 Sir Felix Meddles with Many Matters 533

71 John Crumb Falls into Trouble 540

72 ‘Ask Himself’ 547

73 Marie’s Fortune 556

74 Melmotte Makes a Friend 562

75 In Bruton Street 570

76 Hetta and her Lover 578

77 Another Scene in Bruton Street 587

78 Miss Longestaffe Again at Caversham 595

79 The Brehgert Correspondence 601

80 Ruby Prepares for Service 611

81 Mr Cohenlupe Leaves London 617

82 Marie’s Perseverance 627

83 Melmotte Again at the House 635

84 Paul Montague’s Vindication 642

85 Breakfast in Berkeley Square 650

86 The Meeting in Bruton Street 656

87 Down at Carbury 663

88 The Inquest 671

89 The Wheel of Fortune 678

90 Hetta’s Sorrow 687

91 The Rivals 693

92 Hamilton K. Fisker Again 701

93 A True Lover 709

94 John Crumb’s Victory 717

95 The Longestaffe Marriages 724

96 Where ‘The Wild Asses Quench their Thirst’ 731

97 Mrs Hurtle’s Fate 738

98 Marie Melmotte’s Fate 746

99 Lady Carbury and Mr Broune 753

100 Down in Suffolk 761

CHAPTER 1

Three Editors

Let the reader be introduced to Lady Carbury, upon whose character and doings much will depend of whatever interest these pages may have, as she sits at her writing-table in her own room in her own house in Welbeck Street. Lady Carbury spent many hours at her desk, and wrote many letters – wrote also very much beside letters. She spoke of herself in these days as a woman devoted to Literature, always spelling the word with a big L. Something of the nature of her devotion may be learned by the perusal of three letters which on this morning she had written with a quickly running hand. Lady Carbury was rapid in everything, and in nothing more rapid than in the writing of letters. Here is Letter No. 1: –

‘Thursday, Welbeck Street.

‘DEAR FRIEND – I have taken care that you shall have the early sheets of my two new volumes to-morrow, or Saturday at latest, so that you may, if so minded, give a poor struggler like myself a lift in your next week’s paper. Do give a poor struggler a lift. You and I have so much in common, and I have ventured to flatter myself that we are really friends! I do not flatter you when I say, that not only would aid from you help me more than from any other quarter, but also that praise from you would gratify my vanity more than any other praise. I almost think you will like my Criminal Queens. The sketch of Semiramis1 is at any rate spirited, though I had to twist it about a little to bring her in guilty. Cleopatra, of course, I have taken from Shakespeare. What a wench she was! I could not quite make Julia2 a queen; but it was impossible to pass over so piquant a character. You will recognize in the two or three ladies of the empire how faithfully I have studied my Gibbon. Poor dear old Belisarius!3 I have done the best I could with Joanna, but I could not bring myself to care for her. In our days she would simply have gone to Broadmore.4 I hope you will not think that I have been too strong in my delineations of Henry VIII and his sinful but unfortunate Howard.5 I don’t care a bit about Anne Boleyne. I am afraid that I have been tempted into too great length about the Italian Catherine;6 but in truth she has been my favourite. What a woman! What a devil! Pity that a second Dante could not have constructed for her a special hell.