Trollope singled out Orley Farm for its successful combination of realistic and sensational effects which he felt to be the highest achievement of the novelist. It was greatly admired by his contemporaries, including George Eliot and G. H. Lewes. The novel centers on a case of forgery and the anguish, guilt, and pathos of the central character, Lady Mason. Youthful marriage choices, middle-aged martial crisis, and the moving love and loss of an elderly man revolve around the legal action and the complex portrayal of Lady Mason, who is both sympathetic and wily. The novel proposes a standard of morality higher than that embodied in the practice of an English court of law.

With its concern for social issues and its extensive coverage of middle-class and landed life, Orley Farm is a novel that demands attention in the rich field of nineteenth-century fiction.