Galsworthy, John ~ The Forsyte Saga

FIRST UK PRINTING : William Heinemann, London : 1922

The First UK Printing published by William Heinemann, London in 1922. 8vo., bright green cloth, upper board ruled in blind with title in gilt and author's signature in emblem gilt to the upper portion; publisher's device in blind to lower board; backstrip lettered in gilt; upper edge top-stain green; together in the blue printed wrapper (priced 7/6 to spine); with complete folding family tree; The BOOK is in Very Good++ or better condition. The endpapers are offset with a light horizontal crease to front free endpaper; a few light creases to pages and lightly spotted at the fore-edge; a couple of small light marks to the boards and bruises to spine tips; otherwise clean and bright, with many pages entirely unopened; the WRAPPER also in Very Good++ or better condition, toned along the spine and edges with some minor creasing and rubbing to extremities; a couple of small nicks and short closed tears to spine tips; one or two tiny chips; seldom found thus, and entirely unrestored. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First collected edition, first state. Comprising 'The Man of Property', 'Indian Summer of a Forsyte', 'In Chancery', 'Awakening' and 'To Let'. The author has here provided a new introduction, in which he writes: "If these chronicles had been a really scientific study of transition, one would have dwelt probably on such factors as the invention of bicycle, motor car, and flying machine; the arrival of a cheap Press; the decline of country life and increase of towns; the birth of the Cinema. Men are, in fact, quite unable to control their own inventions; they at best develop adaptability to the new conditions those inventions create. But this long tale is no scientific study of a period; it is rather an intimate incarnation of the disturbance that Beauty effects in the lives of men." It is a sentiment which still rings true today. 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 modeled 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. Scarce with the wrapper in such condition.

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