The Claverings is filled with contemporary detail and shows, as Trollope often does, the weakness of men and the emotional strength of women. Harry Clavering is a likable young man who is the son of a rector, a graduate of university, and is more adept at charm and conversation than hard, dull work. He is in love with Julia Brabazon, a beautiful young woman without means who refuses to marry him but chooses to marry an unpleasant, ailing alcoholic who is a wealthy count. She does so and is soon a wealthy widow, the count done in by his own excesses. However, in the mean time, Harry has become engaged to a less dazzling but perhaps more worthy young woman, Florence Burton.