John Galsworthy

The English novelist and playwright John Galsworthy (1867-1933) was one of the most popular writers of the early 20th century. His work explores the transitions and contrasts between pre-and post-World War I England.

Born on Aug. 14, 1867, in Coombe, Surrey, at the height of the Victorian era, John Galsworthy was educated at Harrow and New College, Oxford. He was admitted to the bar in 1890, and 8 years later, after his first novel Jocelyn appeared, he left law to continue writing. The Island Pharisees (1904) and The Man of Property (1906), which became the first novel in The Forsyte Saga, expanded his audience and his reputation.

As his popularity increased, Galsworthy published other novels of the Forsyte series: Indian Summer of a Forsyte (1918), In Chancery (1920), Awakening (1920), and To Let (1921). In The Forsyte Saga late Victorian and Edwardian England's upper-middle-class society is portrayed, dissected, and criticized. Although The Man of Property and To Let are widely separated in time, the Saga's theme and structure form a unit wherein three generations of the large, clannish Forsyte family rise and decay on realistic and symbolic levels.

The Country House (1907), Fraternity (1909), The Patrician (1911), and The Dark Flower (1913) are not novels in the sequence, but they are related to it in place and time. Galsworthy wove social history into his novels: he reproduced the values, classes, hierarchy, stability, and smugness of the Edwardian era.

After World War I Galsworthy produced another, less successful, cycle of novels about the Forsyte family in post-war England. The White Monkey (1924), The Silver Spoon (1926), and Swan Song (1928) were collectively published in 1929 as A Modern Comedy. This series is less firm than The Forsyte Saga, its characterizations are weaker, and its architectural quality is disjunctive. It reflects Galsworthy's own uncertainty about the years after the war, which were marked by a revolution in values whose outcome was uncertain. After the second cycle was completed, Galsworthy published two more novels, Maid in Waiting (1931) and Flowering Wilderness (1932).

Although Galsworthy is best known for his novels, he was also a successful playwright. He constructed his drama on a legalistic basis, and the plays typically start from a social or ethical impulse and reach a resolution after different viewpoints have been expressed. Like The Silver Box (1906) and Strife (1909), Justice (1910) is realistic, particularly in the use of dialogue that is direct and uninflated. Part of the realism is an awareness of detail and the minute symbol. That awareness is clear in the intricate symbols of The Forsyte Saga; it is less successful in the drama and his later novels because it tends to be overstated.

In Justice Galsworthy revealed himself as something of a propagandist or, according to Joseph Conrad, "a moralist." Galsworthy selected detail and character to isolate a belief or a judgment; he said, "Selection, conscious or unconscious, is the secret of art." The protagonists in his drama and his prose fiction generally typify particular viewpoints or beliefs. Explaining his method of characterization, he wrote, "In the greatest fiction the characters, or some of them, should sum up and symbolize whole streaks of human nature in a way that our friends, however well known to us, do not…. Within their belts are cinctured not only individuals but sections of mankind." He also stated that his aim was to create a fictional world that was richer than life itself.

John Galsworthy was awarded the Order of Merit in 1929 and the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932. He died at Hampstead on Jan. 31, 1933.

Further Reading

H.V. Marrot, The Life and Letters of John Galsworthy (1935), is valuable as a biographical source. Dudley Barker, The Man of Principle (1963), is the most comprehensive biography of Galsworthy. Ford Maddox Ford discusses him in Portraits from Life (1937). Other biographies are Sheila Kaye-Smith, John Galsworthy (1916); Leon Schalit, John Galsworthy: A Survey (1929); Hermon Ould, John Galsworthy (1934); and R. H. Mottram, For Some We Loved: An Intimate Portrait of Ada and John Galsworthy (1956).

Additional Sources

Dupre, Catherine, John Galsworthy: a biography, New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1976; London: Collins, 1976.

Fabes, Gilbert Henry, John Galsworthy: his first editions, points and values, Norwood, Pa.: Norwood Editions, 1976.

Frechet, Alec, John Galsworthy: a reassessment, Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1982.

Gindin, James Jack, The English climate: an excursion into a biography of John Galsworthy, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979.

Gindin, James Jack, John Galsworthy's life and art: an alien's fortress, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987.

Ould, Hermon, John Galsworthy: an appreciation together with a bibliography, Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1976. □

Galsworthy, John (1867–1933), trained for the law then turned to literature. The first appearance of the Forstye family was in one of the stories in Man of Devon (1901). His novel The Island Pharisees (1904), revealing his interest in the effects of poverty and the constraints of convention, was followed by other novels including Fraternity (1909) and The Dark Flower (1913). The first of the Forstye novels, The Man of Property (1906), was followed by In Chancery (1920) and To Let (1921) which, together with two interludes, appeared collectively as The Forsyte Saga (1922). The second part of the Forsyte chronicles, containing The White Monkey (1924). The Silver Spoon (1926), Swan Song (1928), and the two interludes ‘A Silent Wooing’ and ‘Passers By’, was published as A Modern Comedy in 1929. Galsworthy followed their immense success with a further collection of stories, On Forstyte Change (1931).

Galsworthy began his playwriting career with The Silver Box (1906)—a play about theft in which he employed a favourite device of ‘parallel’ families, one rich, one poor. This was the first of a long line of plays on social and moral themes, including Strife (1909), an examination of men and managers in industry, and Justice (1910), in which a minor felon is ground down by the cruel majesty of the law; the play was part of Galsworthy's long campaign against the practice of solitary confinement, which strongly influenced the Home Office. His later plays include The Skin Game (1920), Loyalties (1922), and Old English (1924).

Posthumous publications included Collected Poems (1934) and in 1935 The End of the Chapter, consisting of Maid in Waiting (1931), The Flowering Wilderness (1932), and Over the River (1933), relating the family history of the Charwells, cousins of the younger Forsytes. Galsworthy was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932.

John Galsworthy , 1867–1933, English novelist and dramatist. Winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature, he is best remembered for his series of novels tracing the history of the wealthy Forsyte family from the 1880s to the 1920s. Of an old and rich family, Galsworthy spent his youth in relative leisure, studied at Oxford, was called to the bar in 1890, and in 1894 began a period of extensive travel. After the publication of his first novel, Jocelyn (1898), he devoted himself entirely to writing. The bulk of his fiction deals with the fortunes of the Forsytes, an upper-middle-class family—complacent, acquisitive, snobbish, and ruled by money. His attitude toward them was not unsympathetic, and he created several memorable characters, notably Soames Forsyte, "the man of property," who treats even his wife as a possession. The Forsyte novels are grouped in three trilogies. The first of these, The Forsyte Saga (1922), includes The Man of Property (1906), In Chancery (1920), and To Let (1921). The second trilogy, A Modern Comedy (1928), includes The White Monkey (1924), The Silver Spoon (1926), and Swan Song (1928). The third group, End of the Chapter (1934), includes Maid in Waiting (1931), Flowering Wilderness (1932), and One More River (1933). Galsworthy also wrote a series of dramas concerned with various social problems. Although their impartiality makes them less than exciting, the plays were remarkably successful. They include The Silver Box (1906), Strife (1909), Justice (1910), The Pigeon (1912), The Skin Game (1920), Loyalties (1922), and Escape (1926).

Bibliography: See his Life and Letters by H. V. Marrot (1935, repr. 1973); his letters to E. Garnett (1934); biographies by R. H. Mottram (1956) and R. Sauter (1967); studies by A. Frechet (tr. 1982) and J. Gindin (1979 and 1987); bibliography by H. V. Marrot (1928, repr. 1973).

Galsworthy, John (1867–1933). One of the most prolific of Edwardian men of letters, Galsworthy went to Harrow and New College, Oxford. He began as a lawyer but took up writing after meeting Joseph Conrad. In his plays The Silver Box (1906), Strife (1909), and Justice (1910) he showed how heavily the law could bear upon the poor and defenceless. The first novel of the Forsyte family appeared in 1906 as The Man of Property, followed by In Chancery (1920) and To Let (1921), brought together in 1922 as The Forsyte Saga. After that the Forsytes took over and appeared in a string of novels. Galsworthy declined a knighthood in 1918, was awarded the OM in 1929, and the Nobel prize for literature in 1932. His plays lost their topicality, but the novels remained popular and the Forsyte Saga had a resounding success when transferred to television in the 1970s. In part this was nostalgia for a bygone age of clubs, cabs, grand hotels, and visits to spas, but it also reflected Galsworthy's gift for creating interesting and living characters.

J. A. Cannon

Galsworthy, John (1867–1933), playwright. The English novelist and dramatist was much admired for his serious examination of the inequities of contemporary life. His critical look at the British legal system, The Silver Box (1907), was highly praised but failed to run despite the fine acting of its star, Ethel Barrymore. Nor did the labor troubles drama Strife (1909) fare any better. But Galsworthy's grim picture of prison life in Justice (1916) appeared at the same time that a young Eugene O'Neill and other American playwrights were beginning to move drama away from 19th‐century artificiality, and the play was instantly recognized by more venturesome playgoers and critics as another important breakaway from fading traditions. The work's popularity was enhanced by the brilliant performance of John Barrymore, whose stardom was then assured. Among his subsequent successes were The Skin Game (1920), Loyalties (1922), and Escape (1927).

Galsworthy, John (1867–1933). Galsworthy went to Harrow and New College, Oxford, began as a lawyer, but took up writing after meeting Joseph Conrad. In his plays The Silver Box (1906), Strife (1909), and Justice (1910) he showed how heavily the law could bear upon the poor. The first novel of the Forsyte family appeared in 1906 as The Man of Property, followed by In Chancery (1920) and To Let (1921), brought together in 1922 as The Forsyte Saga. Galsworthy declined a knighthood in 1918, was awarded the OM in 1929, and the Nobel prize for literature in 1932. His plays lost their topicality, but the novels remained popular and the Forsyte Saga had a resounding success when transferred to television in the 1970s.

Galsworthy, John (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright. Galsworthy is best known for a quartet of novels, The Forsyte Saga (1906–21), that traces three generations of a fictional English upper-middle-class family. Other chronicles include A Modern Comedy (1924–28) and End of the Chapter (1931–33). He received the 1932 Nobel Prize in literature