The Forsyte Saga (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

John Galsworthy (Author), Geoffrey Harvey (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2008 | Series: Oxford World's Classics

The three novels which make up The Forsyte Saga chronicle the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920. Galsworthy's masterly narrative examines not only their fortunes but also the wider developments within society, particularly the changing position of women. This is the only critical edition of the work available, with Notes that explain contemporary artistic and literary allusions and define the slang of the time.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Sequence of three novels linked by two interludes by John Galsworthy. The saga chronicles the lives of three generations of a monied, middle-class English family at the turn of the century. As published in 1922, The Forsyte Saga consisted of the novel The Man of Property (1906); the interlude (a short story) "Indian Summer of a Forsyte" (1918); the novel In Chancery (1920); the interlude "Awakening" (1920); and the novel To Let (1921). Soames Forsyte, a solicitor and "the man of property," is married to the beautiful, penniless Irene, who falls in love with Philip Bosinney, the French architect whom Soames had hired to build a country house. Soames rapes Irene and proceeds to ruin Bosinney, who subsequently dies in a traffic accident in London. Irene returns to Soames. In Chancery concerns the love between Irene and Young Jolyon Forsyte, Soames's cousin. (The story of the last days of Old Jolyon, his father, is told in "Indian Summer of a Forsyte.") Irene and Soames divorce; she marries Jolyon and bears a son, Jon. Soames and his second wife, Annette Lamotte, have a daughter, Fleur. In To Let, Fleur and Jon grow up and fall in love; Jolyon informs his son of Irene and Soames's past relationship. Although Fleur is determined to marry Jon, he refuses. Fleur becomes the wife of Michael Mont, son of a baronet. Jolyon dies, and Irene leaves England. Soames discovers that Annette is involved in an affair with a Frenchman, as Irene had been. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Geoffrey Harvey is Senior Lecturer in English at Reading University. He is also the editor of Trollope's Mr Scarborough's Family, The Bertrams, and Marion Fay in World's Classics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 912 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199549893
• ISBN-13: 978-0199549894
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.6 x 7.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #357,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE FORGOTTEN GREATS September 12, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

Upon the release of ML's 100 greatest English-lanuage novels of this century, it was to my great sadness to find "The Forsyte Saga" missing from the list. It seemed to confirm what I'd feared for the last several years: even critics have left this spectacular collection behind.

Perhaps it is the fact that of the book's length that frightens off so many readers: at 800+ pages it doesn't exactly make for easy beach reading. Keep in mind, however, that the book is comprised not only of three separate novels but also of connecting interludes.

If you want to read truly great literature of such a standard that earned John Galsworthy a Nobel Prize for Literature, you need look no further than "The Forsyte Saga."

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Nobel saga December 13, 2001

By Wordsworth VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

The writing evident in this epic is masterful and engaging: it is even and substantive and elegant. The rich irony about the lengths that men strive to acquire property in all its forms and then find their acquisitions useless, meaningless and certainly not worth the price. Galworthy was focused upon property in so many different varieties: the sense of possession that men had of their wives in his time amid archaic laws about divorce; the building of a home that ends in unexpected expense in chancery; the elusive value of works of art; the subtleties of property from family crests, clubs, colleges and occupational status and cuts of mutton to the blatant futility of fighting over land in South Africa during the Boer War -- it's all shallow and empty materialism in the end. The property is never worth the cost of the trouble to acquire it. Young people slave to gather possessions only to regret in old age that they have traded so much of life away to gain them and must undergo the painful rigors of its redistribution through wills after death. Galsworthy seemed to me like a sort of British Tolstoy writing in England for property reform. Because when property is involved, men tend to objectify about it and in the course of things they tend to lose their sense of humanity. This troublesome pattern of life seems to repeat itself often like a lesson men never learn -- as the objectifying I-It relationship of Martin Buber replaces the humane I-Thou. Yes, it's a long novel but when the writing is this compelling in its style and substance, you can luxuriate in the beauty and wisdom of the words. Every character is finely and individually drawn like a character in a Velasquez portrait of a large family. You may regret that this edition isn't longer when it ends but fortunately there is more of his work in which to indulge. Galsworthy's work earned him a Nobel Prize -- it's easy to see the astonishing depth and range and virtuosity that the Nobel judges found in his writing. Don't pass up the chance to bask in this epic saga of Galsworthy. It's easily one of the top ten novels ever written in the English language -- it's really that good.

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars No wonder Galsworthy won! December 30, 2002

By dikybabe

Format:Hardcover

What an infinite study of character, the Forsyte character, men of ownership, of possession, of material things!

I waited for the PBS presentation with patient enthusiasm, and was not disappointed. But knowing that video/movies can only do so much for a text, I unearthed my own private copy of Galworthy's book, one inherited from my aunt, and started the discovery by print.

I have been so overcome by Galsworthy's skill as a wordsmith, and so fascinated by his social commentary on this class of people, that I have broken away from the novel time and time again and done further research into Galsworthy and his own commentaries of his work, particularly on the Forsytes. From his wife, Ada's preface, through his intro, to his chosen dedications, I am enchanted. I feel remiss to not have read him before this time, but so grateful to have an old copy and to now enrich my life with these characters.

While not disappointed by the TV rendering, I am glad to know Soames, Irene, Old Jolyon, Young Jolyon, June, as Galsworthy painted them. I am glad to see their physical makeup to be different than those of the actors and actresses in the PBS series, and to feel I know them much more completely now.

I have a personal love of British lit and am so pleased to find such great storytelling in an older text. The judges were so right in awarding prizes to Galsworthy.

The Forsyte Saga is not so foreign in time and portrayal. Materialism still reigns and seduces and corrupts. Class one-up-manship still deludes. Self-importance and shallow values still prevail. Feet of clay forever are feet of clay.