"The Way We Live Now" by Anthony Trollope is a satirical novel published in 1875. Inspired by financial scandals of the early 1870s, it exposes the greed and dishonesty pervading Victorian commercial and political life. The story centers on Augustus Melmotte, a mysterious financier who arrives in London with grand ambitions. His railway scheme entangles aristocrats, a dissolute baronet pursuing Melmotte's daughter for her fortune, and various others whose lives become dangerously intertwined with his corrupt enterprise. Trollope's longest work dramatizes moral corruption across all levels of society. (This is an automatically generated summary.)