Showing results by author "John Galsworthy" in All Categories

The Forsyte Saga initially centres on Soames Forsyte - a successful solicitor living in London with his beautiful wife Irene. A pillar of the late Victorian upper middle class, materially wealthy, his appears to be a golden existence endowed with all the necessary possessions for a 'Man of Property' but beneath this very proper exterior lies a core of unhappiness and brutal relationships. When The Forsyte Saga was shown on television in 1967 it was hugely successful.

Maid in Waiting is the beginning novel in the last trilogy of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Chronicles. In this 7th installment, the story continues of the lives and times, loves and losses, fortunes and deaths of the fictional but entirely representative family of propertied Victorians, the Forsytes.

After just 18 months of marriage, Clare has fled from her highly esteemed but sadistic husband, Gerald, in Ceylon and boarded a ship back to England. Onboard, she meets a charming but penniless expatriate named Tony Croom, who falls madly in love with her. They develop a close but platonic relationship, unaware that Clare's husband has set detectives on her. When Clare refuses to return to her husband, he accuses her of adultery with Tony in a highly public divorce case.

Soames travels to Paris to make one last attempt to regain Irene and the detective agency think they have found the man involved in the affair.Irene returns to London to seek Jolyon’s help and the two become closer while Soames takes out some insurance with Annette’s mother.The spurned husband confronts the lovers at Robin Hill in a meeting which verges on violence and as devastating news comes from the Front more young Forsytes prepare to serve their country.

The house at Richmond is finished at last, but Soames takes Bosinney to court for exceeding the budget. The final judgment of their case turns on ‘a very fine point’ in their correspondence.... The architect does not heed Young Jolyon’s warning and continues to pursue Irene - with fatal consequences.

As Jolyons condition worsens he writes a letter to Jon explaining the history of the feud, intending to use it only as a last resort. The boy eventually reads his father’s ‘confession’ and Jolyon is brought down by the stress. The young Mont continues to pay court to Fleur. Soames, hedging his bets, researches the boy’s background and finds that an alliance with the nobility might have its attractions.

The Man of Property, the first in the long series of novels written by John Galsworthy known as the Forsyte Saga, was written in 1906. It was the second novel that Galsworthy had published under his own name, the four novels previous to this being published privately under the pseudonym John Sinjohn. And, unlike its predecessors, it was a great success. It examined and dissected the habits, manners, snobberies and increasingly suffocating moral code of the upper-middle classes to which he belonged.

A rich and varied collection of classic short stories by British writers: 'Quality' by John Galsworthy, 'The Mark on the Wall' by Virginia Woolf, 'The Horse Dealer’s Daughter' by D. H. Lawrence, 'The Ticking of the Clock' by Louisa Baldwin, 'The Fiddler of the Reels' by Thomas Hardy, 'The Return' by R. Murray Gilchrist, 'Kew Gardens' by Virginia Woolf, 'Seashore Macabre' by Hugh Walpole, 'Satan’s Circus' by Eleanor Smith, 'The Coffin Merchant' by Richard Middleton....

The Dark Flower has a universal theme - the positive powers and the disruptive effects of sexuality and desire. It is the story of Mark Lennan and his infatuation, adulterous affair, conventional marriage and obsession for a younger woman. The author drew on his own experiences for much of the substance of his work and was truly a free thinker with regard to the relationship between the sexes.

"Beyond" (1917) is a romance novel by John Galsworthy. Excerpt from the book: "On this grey February day he wore no overcoat; faithful to the absolute, almost shamefaced quietness of that wedding, he had not even donned black coat and silk hat, but wore a blue suit and a hard black felt. The instinct of a soldier and hunting man to exhibit no sign whatever of emotion did not desert him this dark day of his life.

Collection includes the most famous horror stories of all time from the pens of genius' of the genre: Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker.

"The Patrician" (1911) is a historical romance by John Galsworthy. Excerpt from the book: "Light, entering the vast room - a room so high that its carved ceiling refused itself to exact scrutiny - travelled, with the wistful, cold curiosity of the dawn, over a fantastic storehouse of Time. Light, unaccompanied by the prejudice of human eyes, made strange revelation of incongruities, as though illuminating the dispassionate march of history. For in this dining hall - one of the finest in England - the Caradoc family had for centuries assembled the trophies and records of their existence.

John Galsworthy (1867 - 1933) was an English playwright and novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932. 'Quality' is a poignant tale of a master boot maker whose quest for perfection leads to his own tragic downfall.

"Indian Summer of a Forsyte", an interlude, recounts the lyrical last days of old Jolyon Forsyte as he basks in the glow of his visits with the beautiful Irene. In Chancery deals with Soames' divorce and marriage to a French woman, Annette, and the love story of Irene and young Jolyon.

This is the final book of "The Forsyte Saga". The interlude "Awakening" introduces us to young Jon's discoveries and his love for his mother Irene. To Let tells of Soames' daughter Fleur's and Jon's love for each other - a love which is subjected to the stigma of their parents' divorce.

Jon and his mother go to Spain. The son manages to curtail the visit after six weeks.Meanwhile, Jolyon strengthens his relationship with his eldest daughter, June, who reveals that she sympathises with the young lovers. It is June who helps Fleur in her search for the history of the feud within the family. Prosper Profond, who continues to ingratiate himself with the Forsyte clan, inadvertently discloses the truth.

It is 1899. Old Jolyon has long since been buried at Robin Hill, and with the death of Aunt Susan in 1895 and Roger’s funeral opening this instalment of the Saga, the Forsytes are fast becoming aware of their mortality. Yet more problems beset the family.

Timothy, at just over 100 years of age, is the last survivor of the 10 siblings of Superior Dosset Forsyte. In this latest volume we are introduced to the grandchildren of those Forsytes who first began the Saga. Soames’s daughter Fleur is 20 at the start of the 1920s, a bright, wilful and independent spirit who can twist her father around her little finger. There is also Jon, the offspring of Jolyon and Irene, a sensitive and intelligent, though slightly naïve, young man of the same age.

The "man of property", Soames Forsyte, has mellowed with the passing of the years until, in his old age, he is a patient and benign figure, guarding with especial tenderness the welfare of his daughter, Fleur. But all his watchfulness and devotion are powerless to avert tragedy when Fleur revives her old love affair with Jon Forsyte on Jon's return to England with his American wife.

John Galsworthy was born in Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey, on August 14th 1867. The family was wealthy and well established. John was schooled at Harrow and New College, Oxford, before training as a barrister. But law was not for him. Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled The Four Winds. Initially he published as John Sinjohn, but after the death of his father in 1904 he published as John Galsworthy. Much of his early work was as plays for which he dealt with social issues and the class system.