The Bertrams (Volume II): A Novel. In Three Volumes, Vol. II.

The Bertrams was first published in March 1859 by Chapman & Hall in London. Following the success of his earlier works, such as Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope wrote this novel during a period of intense productivity while he was also working as a surveyor for the General Post Office. The narrative explores the protagonist George Bertram’s struggles with personal ambition, faith, and romantic entanglement, reflecting Trollope's recurring interest in the social and moral complexities of the Victorian middle class.

The three-volume format was a standard commercial practice for fiction in the mid-19th century, designed specifically for the circulation systems of circulating libraries like Mudie’s. While the novel was received with mixed reviews at the time—with some critics finding the characters less engaging than those in his Barsetshire series—it remains a significant artifact of Trollope's mid-career output. The design of these volumes typically featured utilitarian cloth bindings intended to withstand the heavy handling of library readers.