Windows: "Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem."

By John Galsworthy

John Galsworthy was born at Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey, England, on August 14th 1867 to a wealthy and well established family. His schooling was at Harrow and New College, Oxford before training as a barrister and being called to the bar in 1890. However, Law was not attractive to him and he travelled abroad becoming great friends with the novelist Joseph Conrad, then a first mate on a sailing ship. In 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. The affair was kept a secret for 10 years till she at last divorced and they married on 23rd September 1905. Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled “The Four Winds”. For the next 7 years he published these and all works under his pen name John Sinjohn. It was only upon the death of his father and the publication of “The Island Pharisees” in 1904 that he published as John Galsworthy. His first play, The Silver Box in 1906 was a success and was followed by “The Man of Property" later that same year and was the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Whilst today he is far more well know as a Nobel Prize winning novelist then he was considered a playwright dealing with social issues and the class system. Here we publish Villa Rubein, a very fine story that captures Galsworthy’s unique narrative and take on life of the time. He is now far better known for his novels, particularly The Forsyte Saga, his trilogy about the eponymous family of the same name. These books, as with many of his other works, deal with social class, upper-middle class lives in particular. Although always sympathetic to his characters, he reveals their insular, snobbish, and somewhat greedy attitudes and suffocating moral codes. He is now viewed as one of the first from the Edwardian era to challenge some of the ideals of society depicted in the literature of Victorian England. In his writings he campaigns for a variety of causes, including prison reform, women's rights, animal welfare, and the opposition of censorship as well as a recurring theme of an unhappy marriage from the women’s side. During World War I he worked in a hospital in France as an orderly after being passed over for military service. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend. John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stage Door
• Release date: May 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787372559

John Galsworthy

John Galsworthy was a Nobel-Prize (1932) winning English dramatist, novelist, and poet born to an upper-middle class family in Surrey, England. He attended Harrow and trained as a barrister at New College, Oxford. Although called to the bar in 1890, rather than practise law, Galsworthy travelled extensively and began to write. It was as a playwright Galsworthy had his first success. His plays—like his most famous work, the series of novels comprising The Forsyte Saga—dealt primarily with class and the social issues of the day, and he was especially harsh on the class from which he himself came.

Book preview

Windows by John Galsworthy

Fifth Series Plays

John Galsworthy was born at Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey, England, on August 14th 1867 to a wealthy and well established family.  His schooling was at Harrow and New College, Oxford before training as a barrister and being called to the bar in 1890.  However, Law was not attractive to him and he travelled abroad becoming great friends with the novelist Joseph Conrad, then a first mate on a sailing ship.

In 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. The affair was kept a secret for 10 years till she at last divorced and they married on 23 September 1905.

John Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled The Four Winds.  For the next 7 years he published these and all works under his pen name John Sinjohn.  It was only upon the death of his father and the publication of The Island Pharisees in 1904 that he published as John Galsworthy.  In this volume we have Villa Rubein  ays and studies. They are the work of a supreme talent at the top of his game. Whilst today he is far more well know as a Nobel Prize winning novelist then he was considered a playwright dealing with social issues and the class system.  He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend. John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

He is now far better known for his novels, particularly The Forsyte Saga, his trilogy about the eponymous family of the same name. These books, as with many of his other works, deal with social class, upper-middle class lives in particular. Although always sympathetic to his characters, he reveals their insular, snobbish, and somewhat greedy attitudes and suffocating moral codes. He is now viewed as one of the first from the Edwardian era to challenge some of the ideals of society depicted in the literature of Victorian England.

In his writings he campaigns for a variety of causes, including prison reform, women's rights, animal welfare, and the opposition of censorship as well as a recurring theme of an unhappy marriage from the women’s side. During World War I he worked in a hospital in France as an orderly after being passed over for military service.

He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend.

John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

Index of Contents

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

SCENE

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

JOHN GALSWORTHY – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

JOHN GALSWORTHY – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

PERSONS OF THE PLAY

GEOFFREY MARCH  Freelance in Literature

JOAN MARCH   His Wife

MARY MARCH   Their Daughter

JOHNNY MARCH  Their Son

COOK    Their Cook

MR BLY    Their Window Cleaner

FAITH BLY   His Daughter

YOUNG MAN, BLUNTER  A Strange Young Man

P.C. MAN, MR BARNADAS In Plain Clothes

SCENE

The action passes in Geofrey March's House, Highgate-Spring-time.

ACT I

Thursday morning.  The dining-room-after breakfast.

ACT II

Thursday, a fortnight later.  The dining-room after lunch.

ACT III

The same day.  The dining-room-after dinner.

ACT I

The March’s dining-room opens through French windows on one of those gardens which seem infinite, till they are seen to be coterminous with the side walls of the house, and finite at the far end, because only the thick screen of acacias and sumachs prevents another house from being seen.  The French and other windows form practically all the outer wall of that dining-room, and between them and the screen of trees lies the difference between the characters of Mr and Mrs March, with dots and dashes of Mary and Johnny thrown in.  For instance, it has been formalised by MRS MARCH but the grass has not been cut by MR MARCH, and daffodils have sprung up there, which MRS MARCH desires for the dining-room, but of which MR MARCH says: For God's sake, Joan, let them grow.  About half therefore are now in a bowl on the breakfast table, and the other half still in the grass, in the compromise essential to lasting domesticity.  A hammock under the acacias shows that MARY lies there sometimes with her eyes on the gleam of sunlight that comes through: and a trail in the longish grass, bordered with cigarette ends, proves that JOHNNY tramps there with his eyes on the ground or the stars, according.  But all this is by the way, because except for a yard or two of gravel terrace outside the windows, it is all painted on the backcloth.  The MARCHES have been at breakfast, and the round table, covered with blue linen, is thick with remains, seven baskets full.  The room is gifted with old oak furniture: there is a door, stage Left, Forward; a hearth, where a fire is burning, and a high fender on which one can sit, stage Right, Middle;  and in the wall below the fireplace, a service hatch covered with a sliding shutter, for the passage of dishes into the adjoining pantry.  Against the wall, stage Left, is an old oak dresser, and a small writing table across the Left Back corner.  MRS MARCH still sits behind the coffee pot, making up her daily list on tablets with a little gold pencil fastened to her wrist.  She is personable, forty-eight, trim, well-dressed, and more matter-of-fact than seems plausible.  MR MARCH is sitting in an armchair, sideways to the windows, smoking his pipe and reading his newspaper, with little explosions to which no one pays any attention, because it is his daily habit.  He is a fine-looking man of fifty odd, with red-grey moustaches and hair, both of which stiver partly by nature and partly because his hands often push them up.  MARY and JOHNNY are close to the fireplace, stage Right. JOHNNY sits on the fender,