GALSWORTHY, JOHN British playwright and novelist, was born at Coombe, Surrey, on Aug. 14, 1867. Edu cated at Harrow and New college, Oxford, he was called to the bar in 1890, but devoted himself to literature. His first novel, Jocelyn, appeared in 1898, but he attracted wider attention in 1904 with The Island Pharisees, and The Man of Property (1906) . The lat ter was the first novel of the sequence to be known as The Forsyte Saga, the others being The Indian Summer of a For syte (1918), In Chancery (1920), Awakening (192o), and To Let (1921). As a detailed picture of upper middle-class society during the later Victorian and Edwardian eras, the sequence is a remarkable achievement. That picture was supplemented by the greater number of Galsworthy's other novels, of which it is the characteristic social setting, among them The Country House (1907), Fraternity (1909), The Patrician (191I ), The Freelands (1915). In 1924 Galsworthy published The White Monkey, the first volume of a new trilogy which endeavoured to do for London after the War what The Forsyte Saga had accomplished for a gen eration with more certain standards. Soames Forsyte appears in all three of the new series-The Silver Spoon (1926) and Swan Song (1928) being the other two. The new trilogy, together with two interludes, was collected in 1929 under the title of A Modern Comedy. The whole work is rather erratic in form. Galsworthy's sympathy with youth and beauty is tenderly displayed in The Silver Spoon; but the new world was too much for him, and much of all three books betrays passing reactions of an observer in a changing world rather than deeper reflections on human nature. Galsworthy's later novels were On Forsyte 'Change (1930) ; Maid in Waiting (1931) and its sequel Flowering Wilderness (1932); and the posthumous Over the River . He also wrote The Dark Flower (1913) and short stories, collected as Caravan (1925) ; essays; and a war-time commentary, The Burning Spear.
As a dramatist also, Galsworthy enjoyed a deserved fame. His plays, for the most part, are based on ethical or social problems and are marked by a scrupulously judicial effort to display the opposing points of view typified by his characters. Some have partaken too much of this scrupulousness to be counted as having an essentially dramatic quality, but at their best Galsworthy's plays reflect a keen sense of dramatic values. He was the first English dramatist of importance to adopt a strictly natural style of dialogue, in strong contrast to the laboured, rather stagey style favoured by Pinero and the dialectically over-charged manner of Bernard Shaw. In consequence his plays do not read so well, and unless acted by players of exceptional gifts, they are too easily infected by the commonplace, prosaic quality which is so char acteristic of the spoken English of his day, especially the spoken English of the inarticulate upper and upper-middle class which figure largely in his theatre. In Escape (1926) Galsworthy experi mented in a technique suggested by the cinematography. He suc ceeded in showing that a play could easily excel a film in interest and excitement, but not in persuading us that the drama had any thing to learn from the devices of Hollywood. Among the plays should be noted The Silver Box (1906), Joy (1907), Strife (19o9), Justice (191o), The Pigeon (1912), The Eldest Son (1912), The Fugitive (1913), The Skin Game (192o), Loyalties (1922), The Forest (1924). He was awarded the Order of Merit, June 3, See S. Kaye-Smith, John Galsworthy (1916) ; Andre Chevrillon, Trois Etudes Anglaises (1924) ; L. Schalit, John Galsworthy (1928) .