Galsworthy – the man of property

The Man of Property
By
John Galsworthy
Volume 1 of The Forsyte Saga
EBooks@Adelaide
2010
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Last updated Sat Aug 28 15:09:04 2010.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Part I
1. ‘At Home’ at Old Jolyon’s
2. Old Jolyon Goes to the Opera
3. In Swithin’s orange and light-blue dining-room, facing the Park, the round table was laid for twelve.
4. Projection of the House
5. A Forsyte Menage
6. James at Large
7. Old Jolyon’s Peccadillo
8. Plans of the House
9. Death of Aunt Ann
Part II
1. Progress of the House
2. June’s Treat
3. Drive with Swithin
4. James goes to see for himself
5. Soames and Bosinney Correspond
6. Old Jolyon at the Zoo
7. Afternoon at Timothy’s
8. Dance at Roger’s
9. Evening at Richmond
10. Diagnosis of A Forsyte
11. Bosinney on Parole
12. June Pays Some Calls
13. Perfection of the House
14. Soames Sits on the Stairs
Part III
1.

Mrs. Macander’s Evidence
2. Night in the Park
3. Meeting at the Botanical
4. Voyage Into the Inferno
5. The Trial
6. Soames Breaks the News
7. June’s Victory
8. Bosinney’s Departure
9. Irene’s Return
TO MY WIFE:
I DEDICATE THE FORSYTE SAGA IN ITS ENTIRETY,
BELIEVING IT TO BE OF ALL MY WORKS THE LEAST
UNWORTHY OF ONE WITHOUT WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT,
SYMPATHY AND CRITICISM I COULD NEVER HAVE
BECOME EVEN SUCH A WRITER AS I AM.
PREFACE
“The Forsyte Saga” was the title originally destined for that part of it which is called “The Man of Property”; and to adopt it for the collected chronicles of the Forsyte family has indulged the Forsytean tenacity that is in all of us. The word Saga might be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic and that there is little heroism in these pages. But it is used with a suitable irony; and, after all, this long tale, though it may deal with folk in frock coats, furbelows, and a gilt-edged period, is not devoid of the essential heat of conflict. Discounting for the gigantic stature and blood-thirstiness of old days, as they have come down to us in fairy-tale and legend, the folk of the old Sagas were Forsytes, assuredly, in their possessive instincts, and as little proof against the inroads of beauty and passion as Swithin, Soames, or even Young Jolyon. And if heroic figures, in days that never were, seem to startle out from their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to a Forsyte of the Victorian era, we may be sure that tribal instinct was even then the prime force, and that “family” and the sense of home and property counted as they do to this day, for all the recent efforts to “talk them out.”