Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. He wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. This novel offers an entertaining view of a small community living its life in mid-nineteenth-century England. The novel first appeared in 1863, a year in which public reaction against the excesses of the popular sensationalist novel prompted the author to state that he was writing about "the commonest details of commonplace life among the most ordinary people."