Anthony Trollope 
The Way We Live Now 

The Way We Live Now is a satirical novel by Anthony Trollope. It was inspired by the financial scandals of the early 1870s; Trollope had just returned to England from abroad, and was appalled by the greed and dishonesty those scandals exposed. This novel was his rebuke. It dramatises how that greed and dishonesty pervaded the commercial, political, moral, and intellectual life of that era. It tells the story of Augustus Melmotte, a financier with a mysterious past (he is rumoured to have Jewish origins, and it is later revealed that he owned a failed bank in Munich). When he moves his business and his family to London, the city's upper crust begins buzzing with rumours about him — and a host of characters ultimately find their lives changed because of him.