The Claverings

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

4.2

Word count: 1.1M words
Chapters: 111

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 Claverings by Anthony TrollopeAuthor: Trollope, Anthony, 1815-1882,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: May 3, 2005

Editor's review

The Claverings is a novel of social manners from Trollope's middle period, centered on marriage, property, and class respectability, continuing his characteristic restrained prose and gentle satire of human weakness. The story places romantic choice and financial calculation on the same scales, and the characters' hesitation, vanity, and self-justification are rendered with great credibility; readers will find it hard to sort anyone simply into good or bad. Compared with the Barsetshire series, this work focuses more on the everyday ethics of the gentry and clerical circles around London, with an unhurried pace suited to quiet, slow reading. Trollope's narrator frequently interjects commentary, a Victorian voice that reads today as both distant and amusing. For readers who enjoy nineteenth-century English fiction and care about marriage, love, and money, this is an underrated yet rewarding work; those seeking intense dramatic conflict or a modern fast pace may find it mild. The Project Gutenberg edition is convenient for searching and excerpting at any time.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy Victorian English fiction
Literature lovers interested in marriage, property, and class
Readers looking to broaden their reading of Trollope's works
Readers accustomed to a slow pace and dialogue-driven character drama

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plotting and fast-paced narrative
Those impatient with the nineteenth-century interjecting narrator style
Readers hoping for working-class or lower-class perspectives

Reading tips

First sort out the kinship and property relationships among the characters; a simple chart can help.
Pay attention to the narrator's interjections and treat them as important clues to the author's ethical stance.
Proceed chapter by chapter, two or three a day, to avoid fatigue from dense dialogue.
After finishing, compare the marriage theme with Trollope's other works.

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

Is this book related to the Barsetshire series?

The Claverings is not part of the Barsetshire Chronicles; its characters and settings are relatively independent, so it can be read on its own without reading other Trollope works first.

What is the story mainly about?

At its core are several marriages and a question of inheritance, depicting characters in gentry and clerical circles wavering between emotion and interest. The focus is not on suspenseful plot but on the social pressures and self-deception behind personal choices.

How difficult is the language?

The original is nineteenth-century English, with long sentences and a narrator who often inserts commentary. Readers with a university-level reading foundation in English can manage; reading alongside an annotated edition or translation is recommended.

Why does the pace feel slow?

Trollope emphasizes everyday conversation and gradual psychological change, and conflict advances mostly in a restrained manner. Adjust your expectations and read it as a panorama of social manners rather than a plot-driven drama.

Comments

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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.