When Clara Amedroz' brother gambles away the family fortune and then commits suicide, Clara is faced with the prospect of being penniless when her father dies. The new heir to the estate is a distant cousin, Will Belton, a wealthy farmer from Norfolk. Will wishes to marry Clara but she is torn between Will, who her head tells her is the far better man, and Captain Aylmer, the local MP, with whom she is in love. She becomes engaged to Captain Aylmer but soon realises that he is cold and passionless and she breaks off her engagement. Will still wishes to marry Clara but she is stubborn and too...

In mid-19th century England, an era full of celebrated novelists, Anthony Trollope was one of the most popular and critically acclaimed of them all. Even today, his Chronicles of Barsetshire series is widely read, as are his other novels, many of which deal with criticisms of English culture at the time, from its politics to its customs and norms.

Anthony Trollope was one the major English novelists and writers of the Victorian Age. He was also among the most prolific ones, having published forty-seven novels in addition to a number of short stories, Sketches, travelogues and biographies. Trollope succeeded in earning a good reputation as a serious writer during his lifetime and although this reputation seemed to wane during his twilight years and right after his death, the recognition of his genius and literary merits was posthumously revived by critics and academics towards the mid-twentieth century. In addition to being such a...