The Salvation of a Forsythe: "My doctor says I'm in a bad way, James"
()
About this ebook
John Galsworthy was born on the 14th August 1867 on the family estate, Parkfield, in Kingston-upon-Thames. His family’s wealth came from the shipping industry
At age nine he began his education at Saugeen, a Bournemouth preparatory school, before moving to Harrow school in 1881, distinguishing himself as an athlete.
Galsworthy attended New College, Oxford to read law and left with a second-class degree with honours in 1889. The bar called him in 1890 but Galsworthy decided he would rather run the family’s shipping business. This also meant travelling to destinations such as Vancouver, South Africa and Australia.
In 1895 Galsworthy began a decade long affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his first cousin. It was only when, in 1905, she divorced and married Galsworthy that their affair became known.
His literary career began in 1897 with a short story volume, ‘From the Four Winds’, with the pseudonym John Sinjohn as were three further works. Under his own name, in 1904, came ‘The Island Pharisees’, a novel of social observation, seasoned with flashes of satire and propaganda. He also switched from small, independent publishers to the larger Heinemann and to whom he remained for the duration of his career.
1906 saw first major play, ‘The Silver Box’, and the novel ‘The Man of Property’. Each to considerable acclaim. The latter was the first in ‘The Forsyte Saga’ trilogy written between 1906 and 1921. It dealt with the questions of status, class and materialism through Soames Forsyte, who is acutely aware of his ‘new money’ status. Jealous of his wife, his machinations drive her into the arms of another. Soames engages in a terrible revenge with terrible consequences.
His social agenda was enlightened particularly in his condemnation over the use of solitary confinement in prisons, his attacks on theatrical censorship and campaigning for animal rights.
Galsworthy, having been passed over for active service, spent much of the First World War working as an orderly in a field hospital in France.
Despite his it was only in 1920 that he had his first blockbuster play ‘The Skin Game’, a melodrama dealing with ethics, property and class.
In 1920 ‘In Chancery’ also arrived with further discourse on the marital disharmony between Soames Forsyte and his wife.
The appreciation of his work gradually shifted from plays to novels, particularly through his detailing English social difference, tension and pretension with the Forsytes. A second trilogy, ‘A Modern Comedy’, followed, examining his love for his daughter Fleur and the English commercial upper-middle class, its ideologies and Soames’ poisonous materialism.
Having rejected a knighthood in 1918 he was appointed, in 1929, to the Order of Merit. Galsworthy spent his last years writing a third Forsythe trilogy, ‘End of the Chapter’.
In 1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize, but by now failing health meant he was too ill to attend the ceremony.
John Galsworthy died at his Hampstead home of a brain tumour on 31st January, 1933. He was cremated and his ashes scattered from an aeroplane over the South Downs.
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.
Read more from John Galsworthy
The Forsyte Saga - The Complete Edition: The Forsyte Saga + A Modern Comedy + End of the Chapter + On Forsyte 'Change (A Prequel to The Forsyte Saga): Complete Nine Novels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Forsyte Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best British Short Stories of 1922 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Let Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsyte Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsythe Sage - Awakening & To Let: "Beginnings are always messy." Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsyte Saga (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsyte Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Chancery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsyte Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsyte Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsythe Saga - Man Of Property: "One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFlowering Wilderness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silver Box: A Comedy in Three Acts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Forsyte Saga, Volume I. The Man Of Property Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Foundations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man of PropertyVolume 1 of the Forsyte Saga Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Atlantic Book of Modern Plays: Including works by O'Neill, Galsworthy, Synge & Yeats Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnd of the Chapter - Book I - Maid in Waiting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forsyte Saga, Volume II. Indian Summer of a Forsyte In Chancery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5End of the Chapter - Book III - Over the River Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Patrician (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Country House: “One can’t hunt on next to nothing!” Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Saint's Progress: "A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Freelands: “It’s impossible for a husband to interfere with his wife’s principles” Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Salvation of a Forsythe
Related ebooks
Salvation of a Forsyte Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFraternity: “They have been speaking to me of an execution” Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Studies And Essays: “the biggest tragedy of life is the utter impossibility to change what you have done” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dark Flower: "If you do not think about your future, you cannot have one" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mud Larks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPansies' Revenge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories For My Family: "The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of Stephen Leacock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Girl on the Boat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/57 best short stories by John Galsworthy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsActions and Reactions: “My heart is heavy with the things I do not understand” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rack Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mutual Interdependence of Things (Fantasy and Horror Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpeed the Plough: 'The fabric of his dream hardened into a shell for his spirit'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOld Valentines: A Love Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Study In Shadows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBladys of the Stewponey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Grandissimes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedouin Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWithout Prejudice: 'Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of the Clipper Ships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Country House: “One can’t hunt on next to nothing!” Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Adèle And Co. Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Simple Soul Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Choice Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary Butts - A Short Story Collection: Popular dark humour and modernist author that has been sadly forgotten by time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Fiction For You
The Handmaid's Tale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Ugly and Wonderful Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Queen's Gambit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Thinking of Ending Things: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piranesi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Woman in the Room: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tender Is the Flesh Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anna Karenina: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Salvation of a Forsythe
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Salvation of a Forsythe - John Galsworthy
The Salvation of a Forsythe by John Galsworthy
The Author, An Introduction
John Galsworthy was born on the 14th August 1867 on the family estate, Parkfield, in Kingston-upon-Thames. His family’s wealth came from the shipping industry
At age nine he began his education at Saugeen, a Bournemouth preparatory school, before moving to Harrow school in 1881, distinguishing himself as an athlete.
Galsworthy attended New College, Oxford to read law and left with a second-class degree with honours in 1889. The bar called him in 1890 but Galsworthy decided he would rather run the family’s shipping business. This also meant travelling to destinations such as Vancouver, South Africa and Australia.
In 1895 Galsworthy began a decade long affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his first cousin. It was only when, in 1905, she divorced and married Galsworthy that their affair became known.
His literary career began in 1897 with a short story volume, ‘From the Four Winds’, with the pseudonym John Sinjohn as were three further works. Under his own name, in 1904, came ‘The Island Pharisees’, a novel of social observation, seasoned with flashes of satire and propaganda. He also switched from small, independent publishers to the larger Heinemann and to whom he remained for the duration of his career.
1906 saw first major play, ‘The Silver Box’, and the novel ‘The Man of Property’. Each to considerable acclaim. The latter was the first in ‘The Forsyte Saga’ trilogy written between 1906 and 1921. It dealt with the questions of status, class and materialism through Soames Forsyte, who is acutely aware of his ‘new money’ status. Jealous of his wife, his machinations drive her into the arms of another. Soames engages in a terrible revenge with terrible consequences.
His social agenda was enlightened particularly in his condemnation over the use of solitary confinement in prisons, his attacks on theatrical censorship and campaigning for animal rights.
Galsworthy, having been passed over for active service, spent much of the First World War working as an orderly in a field hospital in France.
Despite his it was only in 1920 that he had his first blockbuster play ‘The Skin Game’, a melodrama dealing with ethics, property and class.
In 1920 ‘In Chancery’ also arrived with further discourse on the marital disharmony between Soames Forsyte and his wife.
The appreciation of his work gradually shifted from plays to novels, particularly through his detailing English social difference, tension and pretension with the Forsytes. A second trilogy, ‘A Modern Comedy’, followed, examining his love for his daughter Fleur and the English commercial upper-middle class, its ideologies and Soames’ poisonous materialism.
Having rejected a knighthood in 1918 he was appointed, in 1929, to the Order of Merit. Galsworthy spent his last years writing a third Forsythe trilogy, ‘End of the Chapter’.
In 1932 he was awarded the Nobel Prize, but by now failing health meant he was too ill to attend the ceremony.
John Galsworthy died at his Hampstead home of a brain tumour on 31st January, 1933. He was cremated and his ashes scattered from an aeroplane over the South Downs.
The Salvation of a Forsythe
I
Swithin Forsyte lay in bed. The corners of his mouth under his white moustache drooped towards his double chin. He panted:
My doctor says I'm in a bad way, James.
His twin-brother placed his hand behind his ear. I can't hear you. They tell me I ought to take a cure. There's always a cure wanted for something. Emily had a cure.
Swithin replied: You mumble so. I hear my man, Adolph. I trained him.... You ought to have an ear-trumpet. You're getting very shaky, James.
There was silence; then James Forsyte, as if galvanised, remarked: I s'pose you've made your will. I s'pose you've left your money to the family; you've nobody else to leave it to. There was Danson died the other day, and left his money to a hospital.
The hairs of