The Man of Property

The Man of Property · published 1906 · ISBN 9780755340859

John Galsworthy — John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933) — United Kingdom, writing in English. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.

“for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga” — The Nobel Committee citation

About John Galsworthy

English novelist and playwright, born into a wealthy family and trained in law, though he never practised. Best known for The Forsyte Saga, he also used realist drama to examine class inequality, industrial conflict and a legal system capable of following correct procedure while destroying the person caught inside it.

How it came to be

Published in 1906, this is the opening novel of The Forsyte Saga, a chronicle of the English upper middle class into which Galsworthy himself was born. The private material lies just below the surface: his wife Ada had been married to his cousin, and their long secret affair gave him the model for Irene. When the Nobel Prize came in 1932, it was the Forsyte books that were named as the summit of his art.

Summary of The Man of Property

Soames Forsyte — London solicitor, collector of pictures, certain that beauty and people alike can be bought and kept — is married to Irene, who does not love him. To draw her away from London he commissions the young architect Philip Bosinney to build a house in the country at Robin Hill. Irene and Bosinney fall in love, and the whole Forsyte clan, accustomed to valuing everything as an asset, must watch the one thing they cannot purchase slip out of their hands.

Analysis & legacy

The novel turns on the possessive in its title. For Soames, a marriage, a painting and a house belong to the same category: investments that must yield a return and stay under control. Galsworthy does not make him a villain but the perfect product of a class, so the tragedy arrives not because Soames is worse than his relatives but because they all take his way of seeing for granted. The house at Robin Hill is the governing metaphor — built to enclose a marriage, it becomes the place where that marriage breaks. The restrained irony, which describes the Forsytes in exactly the appraising language they use on the world, makes the book at once a portrait of a class and an indictment of it. The Saga went on to become one of the most widely read and adapted family chronicles in English fiction.

Themes: Property & possession · Marriage · Victorian class · Beauty · Family

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Frequently asked questions

What is The Man of Property about?

Soames Forsyte — London solicitor, collector of pictures, certain that beauty and people alike can be bought and kept — is married to Irene, who does not love him. To draw her away from London he commissions the young architect Philip Bosinney to build a house in the country at Robin Hill. Irene…

Is The Man of Property worth reading?

The novel turns on the possessive in its title. For Soames, a marriage, a painting and a house belong to the same category: investments that must yield a return and stay under control. Galsworthy does not make him a villain but the perfect product of a class, so the tragedy arrives not because…

When did John Galsworthy win the Nobel Prize, and why?

John Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932: “for his distinguished art of narration which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga”

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