The Way We Live Now , by Anthony Trollope , is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics :

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Ruthless greed, relentless self-promotion, corporate swindles and scandals on a grand scale—indeed this sounds like “the way we live now.” Though Anthony Trollope’s title actually refers to 1870s England, his scathing satire of a money-mad culture cuts close to the contemporary bone. At its center stands Augustus Melmotte, a crooked financier whose enormous schemes ensnare an array of avaricious aristocrats, politicians, and “important people.” Among them are Lady Carbury, who earns the family bread by churning out fatuous potboilers (as did Trollope’s mother) and her spendthrift, ne'er-do-well son, Felix, who sets his sights on Melmotte’s dangerously beautiful daughter, Marie. Meanwhile, Felix’s sister, Hetta, falls for Melmotte’s partner, Paul, who’s encumbered with an American fiancée, herself a widow who may have shot her husband. As the frauds expand and the romantic entanglements grow ever more complex, Trollope revels in the antics of his characters while pillorying the corruption of their morally bankrupt society. Nathaniel Hawthorne said it best, praising Trollope for putting England “under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that they were made a show of.” Karen Odden received her M.A. from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University. Her dissertation on the medical, legal, and literary discourses that surrounded Victorian railway disasters discusses works by Trollope and his contemporaries, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, M. E. Braddon, and Mrs. Henry Wood. Chapters and articles have appeared in books of literary criticism, anthologies, the Journal of Victorian Culture , and Studies in the Novel ; she has taught at the University of Michigan, New York University, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Currently a freelance writer and assistant editor for Victorian Literature and Culture , she resides in Arizona with her husband and two children.

特羅洛普，英國作傢。1815年4月24日生於倫敦，1882年12月6日卒於同地。幼年時因傢貧在寄宿學校當走讀生，曾一度隨傢人移居比利時。19～52歲在郵局工作，從文牘員當到高級職員，曾參加過議會競選。

長期堅持業餘寫作，共創作長篇小說47部，還有大量短篇小說、遊記、傳記及一部自傳。前期發錶的一組六部總名為《巴塞特郡》的小說為他奠定瞭基礎，其中以《養老院院長》和《巴切斯特塔》最為膾炙人口。後期小說中也有一組六部作品名為《巴裏塞小說》，屬於政治小說或稱議會小說，其中以《首相》最齣色，寫當時英國上層政治傢的相互鬥爭。

晚年還有兩部優秀作品《如今世道》和《斯卡包魯一傢》。他的寫實手法揭露譏諷英國維多利亞女王時代中、上層社會，並自覺灌注道德教育意圖。他的小說情節發展自然流暢，文筆犀利幽默，人物形象生動，心理刻畫逼真深刻。生前未給予充分評價，近半個世紀文名重振，成為英國19世紀經典作傢之一。