Joseph Hatton's three-volume novel is typical of 19th century English novels in that it is very long (3 volumes), it uses the God-author form talking to the audience as needed, it uses long, descriptive chapter titles. Although it covers the life and fortunes of the Tallant family, it has lots of supporting characters and includes at least one twist which changes the roles of some of these characters. The themes common to many novels of the era are male primogeniture (although this could be overridden by a specific clause in a will), the emerging stock market (and the practice whcih looks like futures in today's stock market but allows people to sell shares that they did not own), wronged lovers, revenge of scorned lovers and so on. Mildly interesting, but it requires a certain type of patience to finish the book.