Places: The Forsyte Saga

*England. Forsyte Saga, TheCountry in which virtually all the action in the novels takes place. Although John Galsworthy was not comfortable with the characterization, many of his contemporaries considered him the era’s leading chronicler of England’s upper-middle class. He himself was the son of a lawyer who owned considerable real estate, so he knew that class intimately. His portrayals of the British aristocracy and of working-class people are considered less successful. In The Forsyte Saga Galsworthy sets many scenes and chapters in locations he personally knew. For instance, a chapter in To Let is set at the annual cricket match between the great public schools Harrow and Eton in London. A graduate of Harrow, Galsworthy regularly attended the event. Part of In Chancery is set at Oxford University, where Galsworthy studied law.

*London. Capital and largest city of Great Britain, in and around which much of the action takes place in scenes at various houses, clubs, streets, restaurants, art galleries, opera houses, parks, courtrooms, train stations, cemeteries, and theaters.

Robin Hill. Small village near which Soames Forsyte–the title character of The Man of Property–decides to build a country house and engages Philip Bosinney to build, furnish, and decorate the house for him. He wants a large house within commuting distance of London in which to keep his collection of paintings and his wife, Irene. He regards Irene as his most precious possession and thinks he can control her better by keeping her out of London. When she and Philip fall in love, Soames seeks his revenge by suing Philip for going over budget on his house.

Soames never lives in the house, a two-story rectangular structure with a courtyard covered by a glass roof. Jolyon Forsyte buys the house and lives in it with his son, young Jolyon Forsyte, and his son’s family until his death a few years later. Later, Irene marries young Jolyon and lives with him in the Robin Hill house. At the opening of To Let, set twenty years later, Irene and Jolyon are still living at Robin Hill

Galsworthy based the grounds of Robin Hill, but not the building itself, on his boyhood home of Coombe Warren. The house is more than a plot device, however. Soames’s problems with the house parallel his problems with Irene and with life in general. Galsworthy believed that it was futile to try to control everything in a person’s life, especially the people in it. The more Soames tries to control his world and to plan other people’s lives, the worse his own life becomes.

Timothy’s house. Home of the aging bachelor Timothy on London’s Bayswater Road, in which, at the beginning of The Man of Property, Timothy lives with three sisters. The redbrick house overlooks a park and is a regular gathering place of the Forsyte clan. Timothy himself, a hypochondriac who lives to the age of one hundred, rarely leaves his bedroom. His funeral at London’s Highgate Cemetery takes place in the last chapter of the last novel, signifying that the saga has ended.