John Galsworthy’s Life and Art: An Alien’s Fortress

643 Pages·1987·62.26 MB·English

by  James Gindin (auth.)

JOHN GALSWORTHY'S LIFE AND ART
Also by James Gindin
POSTWAR BRITISH FICTION: New Accents and Attitudes
HARVEST OF A QUIET EYE: The Novel of Compassion
THE ENGLISH CLIMATE: An Excursion into a Biography of
John Gals worthy
JOHN GALSWORTHY'S
LIFE AND ART
An Alien )s Fortress
James Gindin
Professor of English
University of Michigan
M
MACMILLAN
© James Gindin 1987
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1987 978-0-333-40812-4
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
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or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
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First published 1987
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by Wessex Typesetters
(Division of The Eastern Press Ltd)
Frome, Somerset
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Gindin, James
John Galsworthy's life and art: an alien's fortress.
I. Galsworthy, John, 1867-1933-Criticism and interpretation
I. Title
828' .91209 PR6013.A5Z/
ISBN 978-1-349-08532-3 ISBN 978-1-349-08530-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-08530-9
To joan
Contents
List of Plates IX
Preface XI
A Retrospective Introduction
PART I: APPRENTICESHIP, 1867-1905
2 Galsworthys and Bartleets 15
3 Conventions and Responses 38
4 "You Are just the Person to Write, Why Don't
You?" 71
5 "To Invent Depths Is Not Art Either" 95
6 "I'm Not Such a Fool as I Seem" 114
PART II: THE UNCERTAIN PUBLIC EDIFICE,
1906-13
7 "I Feel More Like a Sort of Chemist" 153
8 "We Want No More Bastard Drama" 188
9 "The Opposition (Spiritual) in The Country House" 217
10 "Almost Passionate Impartiality" 242
11 Emotion Elevated 282
12 "Sublimity Is Lost as You Go Down" 318
PART III: DISSOLUTION AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES, 1914-22
13 Gals worthy Semi-detached 34 7
14 "But Christ's Not Real, and Hindenburg and
Harmsworth Are!" 374
Vll
Vlll Contents
15 Three john Galsworthys and "A Wonderful Red
Letter Day" 395
16 "Demi-Semi-Royal Progress" 415
17 "The Shores of Permanence" 433
18 "Christ's Vicar in the Theatre" 457
PART IV: THE PRIVATE EDIFICE, 1923-33
19 "I Have Lost Fervour" 477
20 Comedy and Civilization "Above the Plimsoll Line
of Property" 500
21 "And john Deserves to be God Too" 526
~~ 5~
Index 606
List of Plates
1 John Galsworthy, Sr (about 1885)
2 Blanche Bartleet Galsworthy, a painting by her son-in-law,
Georg Sauter (about 1895)
3 One of the three houses at Coombe, Surrey, that John
Galsworthy, Sr, built and that the family lived in alternately
from 1868 to 1886
4 A family group: his parents, Blanche Bartleet Galsworthy
and John Galsworthy, Sr, in the centre; sisters, Mabel on the
left and Lilian on the right; John Gals worthy at upper right
(about 1894)
5 John Galsworthy (about 1895)
6 Ada Cooper Galsworthy (about the time ofher first marriage
in 1891)
7 From the left: Mabel Galsworthy, John Galsworthy, Sr,
Georg Sauter, Lilian Galsworthy Sauter holding their baby,
Rudolf, in Bavaria (summer 1895)
8 John Galsworthy (about 1898)
9 John Galsworthy, Sr, with his grandson, Rudolf Sauter
(about 1900)
10 Lilian Galsworthy Sauter with her son, Rudolf, from a
painting by her husband, Georg (about 1900)
11 Lilian Galsworthy Sauter, a painting by her husband, Georg
(about 1907)
12 John Galsworthy (about 1906)
13 Jessie and Joseph Conrad with sons, John (left) and Borys
(right) (about 1908)
14 Hubert Galsworthy and his wife, Lina (about 1905)
15 Mabel Galsworthy Reynolds and her daughter, Veronica
(1910)
16 John Galsworthy, with dog, Chris (about 1909)
17 Ada Galsworthy at Manaton (about 1914)
IX
X List of Plates
18 John and Ada Galsworthy, on the left in the bottom row, with
staff and patients at the hospital near Matouret, in southern
France, in the winter of 1916-17
19 Rudolf and Viola Sauter (about 1927)
20 Arnold Bennett (left) and John Galsworthy, at Bury, Sussex
( 1929)
21 H. G. Wells
22 John and Ada Galsworthy at Bury, Sussex (about 1930)
Plates l-13 and 16--22 are from the Galsworthy Memorial
Collection at the University of Birmingham Library, and are
reprinted with that library's permission.