The Forsyte Saga

The Forsyte Saga is the collective title of a series of novels by John Galsworthy. The name has become almost synonymous with the tradition of "classic" television dramatisations, as a result of the BBC's marathon 1967 serialisation. However, the book had been brought to the screen earlier, by Hollywood as That Forsyte Woman (starring Greer Garson).

Related Topics:
Novel - John Galsworthy - BBC - 1967 - Greer Garson

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The sequence consists of three novels and two interludes: The Man of Property (1906), Indian Summer of a Forsyte (interlude) (1918), In Chancery (1920), Awakening (interlude) (1920), and To Let (1921), They deal, in a manner full of both humour and pathos, with the vicissitudes of the leading members of the Forsyte family, an upper-middle-class clan of businessmen. The main character, Soames Forsyte, sees himself as a "man of property," by virtue of his ability to accumulate material possessions—but this does not succeed in bringing him pleasure. He is besotted with his wife, Irene, but cannot possess her in the same way as his paintings, and is humiliated by her affair with a young architect, Philip Bosinney.

Related Topics:
1906 - 1918 - 1920 - 1921

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Running parallel to the story of their marriage is that of the relationship between Soames' cousin, Jolyon, and the latter's father, also Jolyon, the younger Jolyon having been expelled from the family fold for eloping with his daughter's foreign governess and having gone to live and work as an artist in a poor area of London.

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In later books, Soames and Irene divorce and young Jolyon's second wife dies, and subsequently Jolyon and Irene meet and marry. Eventually their son, Jon, falls in love with Fleur, the daughter of Soames and his second wife. Later books deal with the development of their relationship.

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