The Bertrams

Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 1.2M words
Chapters: 121

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.The Bertrams by Anthony TrollopeAuthor: Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jul 12, 2008

Editor's review

The Bertrams is a novel by Anthony Trollope, part of his early sequence of social novels of manners; this public-domain electronic edition makes it easy to read at any time. The novel continues the author's concern with marriage, property, and social mobility, and through its characters' calculations and hesitations in courtship choices, it presents the realistic logic of the Victorian middle class and gentry. Trollope's narration is unhurried, his psychological portrayal of characters detailed, and the plot advances not through dramatic reversals but through the accumulation of everyday choices, leaving a thought-provoking moral weight. This book serves as a sample for understanding the tradition of the nineteenth-century English social novel and also suits readers who enjoy slow-paced group portraits of characters. While reading, one may pay attention to the characters' weighing between economic pressure and emotion, which is key to understanding the book's structure.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers who love Victorian English novels
Fans of social novels focused on marriage, property, and class
Readers hoping to expand their reading of Trollope's works

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced plots and strong conflict-driven narratives
Readers completely unfamiliar with nineteenth-century English social background and unwilling to look it up
Readers who need a Chinese translation for easy reading

Reading tips

Before reading, a brief understanding of the Victorian marriage and property system helps in understanding the characters' motives.
Proceed chapter by chapter and note the main characters' marital and economic circumstances to clarify the network of relationships.
After finishing, one may compare it with other Trollope novels to observe the consistent themes of his social observation.

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.

FAQ

I haven't read other works by Trollope; can I read this one directly?

Yes. This book is a stand-alone novel and does not depend on the plots of other works. However, Trollope's narrative pace is rather unhurried, and readers new to his work need some patience; it is suggested to read a few chapters first to get used to the style, then decide on the reading pace.

What are the main highlights of this book?

The highlights lie in the characters' realistic weighing of marriage and property issues, and the author's detailed depiction of Victorian class attitudes. The plot does not rely on dramatic turns but excels in the accumulation of character psychology and everyday choices, suiting readers who enjoy novels of social manners.

Is the English original difficult to read?

This is a nineteenth-century English novel, with longer sentences and period-specific wording, making it more difficult than modern popular fiction. Readers with a certain English foundation can read it with an annotated edition or a dictionary; if the main goal is to understand the story, one may first read a Chinese translation and then return to the original.

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About the author

Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882 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.