Ce roman raconte l'histoire et le destin de quatre jeunes gens, tous plus ou moins apparentes a l'oncle Bertram, un vieillard millionnaire. Chacun des protagonistes de cette famille a sa propre conception du bonheur, mais tous s'en eloignent en commettant des erreurs liees a leurs passions ou a un manque de discernement...

Les Bertram

Dans l'Angleterre victorienne, Margaret Mackenzie, vieille fille de 35 ans, reçoit tout à coup un bel héritage. Bientôt, les prétendants se pressent... Désemparée, elle hésite entre son cousin John Ball, veuf et père d'une nombreuse famille; Samuel Rubb, l'associé de son frère, quelque peu filou; et le révérend Maguire, qui aurait été si beau sans son oeil défectueux. Mais la situation se complique lorsque l'héritage est remis en cause...Il va falloir à Miss Mackenzie beaucoup de sang-froid pour entendre son coeur et éviter les pièges qu'on lui tend.Satire discrètement féministe d'une société victorienne étriquée et obnubilée par l'argent, Miss Mackenzie est un régal d'humour, de méchanceté, où les hommes de la bonne société ne sont pas tous des gentlemen et où les femmes sont moins dociles qu'il n'y paraît. Un roman délicieusement British.

Miss Mackenzie

In this work Trollope dwells on the difference between those who wield power and those who are ruled by it. In this classic tale he has delineated characters who are weak and those who are strong. The struggle for power between sexes and between weaker and stronger persons is something that is universal. He has dealt with this theme beautifully.

Un amour de jeunesse

The Way We Live Now is the story of foreign-born financier Augustus Melmotte, a man with a mysterious past who sets the rumour mill on fire upon his arrival in London with his family. Using nothing but his charm, Melmotte convinces several associates to invest in his company. But Melmotte's ascent up the social ladder is blocked by Paul Montague, a young engineer who questions his intentions. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

The Way We Live Now

Thirty years ago my mother wrote a book about the Americans, to which I believe I may allude as a well known and successful work without being guilty of any undue family conceit. That was essentially a woman's book. She saw with a woman's keen eye, and described with a woman's light but graphic pen, the social defects and absurdities which our near relatives had adopted into their domestic life. All that she told was worth the telling, and the telling, if done successfully, was sure to produce a good result. I am satisfied that it did so. But she did not regard it as a part of her work to dilate on the nature and operation of those political arrangements which had produced the social absurdities which she saw, or to explain that though such absurdities were the natural result of those arrangements in their newness, the defects would certainly pass away, while the political arrangements, if good, would remain. Such a work is fitter for a man than for a woman. I am very far from thinking that it is a task which I can perform with satisfaction either to myself or to others. It is a work which some man will do who has earned a right by education, study, and success to rank himself among the political sages of his age. But I may perhaps be able to add something to the familiarity of Englishmen with Americans. The writings which have been most popular in England on the subject of the United States have hitherto dealt chiefly with social details; and though in most cases true and useful, have created laughter on one side of the Atlantic, and soreness on the other. If I could do anything to mitigate the soreness, if I could in any small degree add to the good feeling which should exist between two nations which ought to love each other so well, and which do hang upon each other so constantly, I should think that I had cause to be proud of my work.

North America - (Vol.1) - USA and Canada

La Sinécure

Indefer Jones, le proprietaire de Llanfeare, devenu vieux, est assailli par le doute quant au choix de son heritier. Il choisit d'abord sa niece preferee, Isabel Broderick, puis son neveu Henry Jones, qu'il deteste cordialement, mais c'est un Jones... Il finit par faire un troisieme testament, juste avant sa mort, par lequel il choisit Isabel. Mais ce dernier demeure introuvable. Pas tout a fait car Henry, heritier designe en l'absence du troisieme testament, sait que ce dernier se trouve dans un livre de sermons que son oncle lisait peu avant sa mort."

Le Cousin

Indefer Jones se trouve mal-en-point au debut du roman. Il s'inquiete alors de son heritage et il hesite longuement avant d'etablir son testament. Il aimerait tant pouvoir laisser ses terres de Llanfeare a sa niece Isabel. Celle-ci vit avec lui depuis des annees et est appreciee de tous les fermiers et villageois. Mais Indefer Jones veut respecter la tradition et se decide en faveur de son neveu Henry qu'il connait a peine et qu'il ne porte pas dans son estime. Indefer Jones a neanmoins une idee pour regler son cas de conscience: et si Isabel epousait son cousin Henry ?"

Le Cousin Henry

Whether or no, she, whom you are to forgive, if you can, did or did not belong to the Upper Ten Thousand of this our English world, I am not prepared to say with any strength of affirmation. By blood she was connected with big people, -distantly connected with some very big people indeed, people who belonged to the Upper Ten Hundred if there be any such division; but of these very big relations she had known and seen little, and they had cared as little for her. Her grandfather, Squire Vavasor of Vavasor Hall, in Westmoreland, was a country gentleman, possessing some thousand a year at the outside, and he therefore never came up to London, and had no ambition to have himself numbered as one in any exclusive set. A hot-headed, ignorant, honest old gentleman, he lived ever at Vavasor Hall, declaring to any who would listen to him, that the country was going to the mischief, and congratulating himself that at any rate, in his county, parliamentary reform had been powerless to alter the old political arrangements.

Les Bertram

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