Orley Farm cover

Orley Farm

Rating 4.6
Word count
1.7M words
Chapters
167

Tags

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Orley Farm by Anthony TrollopeAuthor: Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 13, 2007

Editor's review

Orley Farm is a novel by Anthony Trollope published in the 1860s. It revolves around the authenticity of a will, setting off a chain of entanglements involving family, property and reputation. Trollope's narration is unhurried yet sharp, alternating courtroom drama with the daily life of the gentry, with meticulous psychological portrayal of characters; his treatment of women's circumstances and legal ethics carries particular weight. The Project Gutenberg edition makes this substantial work more accessible. There is no need to rush the plot; Trollope's charm often lies in dialogue and detail. Suitable for readers with some experience of Victorian fiction, and for those who wish to understand nineteenth-century English inheritance and judicial practice through fiction. The book is long; reading it in stages is advised.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Experienced literary readers who enjoy Victorian English fiction
  • Readers interested in fiction about wills, inheritance and the law
  • Readers who want to understand nineteenth-century English society and legal culture through fiction
  • Readers with a plan for long English novels who are willing to read in stages

Not a good fit for

  • Light readers who prefer fast-paced plots and lack patience
  • Learners still at the beginning of English reading who need simplified editions
  • Readers who want compact short fiction and are unwilling to commit to long reading

Reading tips

  1. First understand the core conflict over the will, then enter the text, so you do not lose direction during the early exposition.
  2. Read in stages by chapter, sorting out character relationships and key evidence after each part.
  3. Take brief notes on legal and inheritance terms to help with the courtroom passages.
  4. After finishing, revisit the opening family scenes to appreciate the foreshadowing Trollope planted.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
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  33. 33
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  42. 42
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  45. 45
  46. 46
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  48. 48
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  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
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  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
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  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
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  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
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  93. 93
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  133. 133
  134. 134
  135. 135
  136. 136
  137. 137
  138. 138
  139. 139
  140. 140
  141. 141
  142. 142
  143. 143
  144. 144
  145. 145
  146. 146
  147. 147
  148. 148
  149. 149
  150. 150
  151. 151
  152. 152
  153. 153
  154. 154
  155. 155
  156. 156
  157. 157
  158. 158
  159. 159
  160. 160
  161. 161
  162. 162
  163. 163
  164. 164
  165. 165
  166. 166
  167. 167

FAQ

I haven't read any other Trollope. Can I start with this one?
Yes. The plot of Orley Farm is relatively self-contained and does not depend on prior works. Trollope's pace is slow, however, and first-time readers need some patience; it will go more smoothly if you get used to the style before plunging into the plot.
What is this book mainly about?
The novel centers on the authenticity of a will, involving a property dispute within a family, a crisis of reputation and a trial, which in turn draws in the fates of several characters. It is both a plot-driven novel and a detailed observation of Victorian social ethics.
What should I keep in mind when reading the electronic edition?
The Gutenberg edition is a free electronic text whose layout differs from a printed book. For long reading, use a reader with bookmarks and table-of-contents navigation, and pay attention to chapter divisions so you can read in stages and revisit character threads.

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About the author

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) was a prolific English novelist of the Victorian era, with 83 works held in this collection. He is best known for the Barsetshire novels, including The Last Chronicle of Barset, Barchester Towers, and Framley Parsonage, which are set in a fictional English county and portray the daily life, social manners, and power struggles of the clergy and gentry. Other major works, such as The Way We Live Now, The Prime Minister, Orley Farm, and Can You Forgive Her?, turn to politics, business, and marriage, revealing with careful restraint and gentle irony the tension between social convention and personal ambition. Public information is limited, yet his plain narrative style, large casts of clearly drawn characters, and depiction of Victorian social structure retain lasting value for readers.

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