Galsworthy John & Gross, Anthony (Illus.) ~ The Forsyte Saga

FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION : William Heinemann Ltd.,London : 1950

The First UK printing published by William Heinemann Ltd.,London in 1950. Large thick 8vo., green cloth embossed with device in gilt to centre of upper board; contrasting red painted label gilt to spine; publisher's device embossed in blind to lower right hand corner of lower board; decorative endpapers showing the Forsyte family tree; together in the clipped dustwrapper showing an image by Gross; the same image replicated as frontis; a further 11 coloured drawings and 27 pen drawings by Gross; The BOOK an excellent, square copy, essentially near Fine, the weight of the text block making it necessarily and ever-so-slightly shaky in the binding; the Very Good+ WRAPPER would be near-fine, save for a couple of age related markings and a 1cm x 3cm chip to the head of spine (not affecting the text). The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First illustrated edition. The first collected edition had appeared in 1922. Comprised of three novels and two interludes, The Forsyte Saga was originally published between 1906 and 1921, and tells the story of a series of characters in a large upper-middle-class English family. Based on the author's own experiences growing up in Kingston, Surrey, the patriarch, Old Jolyon, is modelled on Galsworthy's own father. Galsworthy was harshly critical of the upper classes, who he believed were blind to the progression of societal change and sought to insulate themselves from the inevitable disintegration of tier class. The books were perhaps a way for the author to process his feelings about the family he had been born into, but by the time he had finished putting his thoughts down onto paper, the plot had spanned some 80 years, from the 1880s to the 1930s. The books have since been adapted several times; in 1967, the BBC broadcast a 26-part adaptation of the work for the author's centenary anniversary, and in the early 2000s several more series were released, most notably starring Damien Lewis. When Galsworthy was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga", he was only the second British writer to do so. Here, Galsworthy's mammoth work is enhanced with a series of striking colourful illustrations by the war artist Anthony Gross

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good +