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    Loyalties: “The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.”
    Loyalties: “The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.”
    Loyalties: “The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.”
    Ebook132 pages1 hour

    Loyalties: “The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.”

    By John Galsworthy

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    John Galsworthy was born at Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey, England, on August 14th 1867 to a wealthy and well established family. His schooling was at Harrow and New College, Oxford before training as a barrister and being called to the bar in 1890. However, Law was not attractive to him and he travelled abroad becoming great friends with the novelist Joseph Conrad, then a first mate on a sailing ship. In 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. The affair was kept a secret for 10 years till she at last divorced and they married on 23rd September 1905. Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled “The Four Winds”. For the next 7 years he published these and all works under his pen name John Sinjohn. It was only upon the death of his father and the publication of “The Island Pharisees” in 1904 that he published as John Galsworthy. His first play, The Silver Box in 1906 was a success and was followed by “The Man of Property" later that same year and was the first in the Forsyte trilogy. Whilst today he is far more well know as a Nobel Prize winning novelist then he was considered a playwright dealing with social issues and the class system. Here we publish Villa Rubein, a very fine story that captures Galsworthy’s unique narrative and take on life of the time. He is now far better known for his novels, particularly The Forsyte Saga, his trilogy about the eponymous family of the same name. These books, as with many of his other works, deal with social class, upper-middle class lives in particular. Although always sympathetic to his characters, he reveals their insular, snobbish, and somewhat greedy attitudes and suffocating moral codes. He is now viewed as one of the first from the Edwardian era to challenge some of the ideals of society depicted in the literature of Victorian England. In his writings he campaigns for a variety of causes, including prison reform, women's rights, animal welfare, and the opposition of censorship as well as a recurring theme of an unhappy marriage from the women’s side. During World War I he worked in a hospital in France as an orderly after being passed over for military service. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend. John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStage Door
    Release dateMay 4, 2017
    ISBN9781787372573
    Loyalties: “The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.”
    Author

    John Galsworthy

    John Galsworthy was a Nobel-Prize (1932) winning English dramatist, novelist, and poet born to an upper-middle class family in Surrey, England. He attended Harrow and trained as a barrister at New College, Oxford. Although called to the bar in 1890, rather than practise law, Galsworthy travelled extensively and began to write. It was as a playwright Galsworthy had his first success. His plays—like his most famous work, the series of novels comprising The Forsyte Saga—dealt primarily with class and the social issues of the day, and he was especially harsh on the class from which he himself came.

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      Book preview

      Loyalties - John Galsworthy

      Loyalties by John Galsworthy

      Fifth Series Plays

      John Galsworthy was born at Kingston Upon Thames in Surrey, England, on August 14th 1867 to a wealthy and well established family.  His schooling was at Harrow and New College, Oxford before training as a barrister and being called to the bar in 1890.  However, Law was not attractive to him and he travelled abroad becoming great friends with the novelist Joseph Conrad, then a first mate on a sailing ship.

      In 1895 Galsworthy began an affair with Ada Nemesis Pearson Cooper, the wife of his cousin Major Arthur Galsworthy. The affair was kept a secret for 10 years till she at last divorced and they married on 23 September 1905.

      John Galsworthy first published in 1897 with a collection of short stories entitled The Four Winds.  For the next 7 years he published these and all works under his pen name John Sinjohn.  It was only upon the death of his father and the publication of The Island Pharisees in 1904 that he published as John Galsworthy.  In this volume we have Villa Rubein  ays and studies. They are the work of a supreme talent at the top of his game. Whilst today he is far more well know as a Nobel Prize winning novelist then he was considered a playwright dealing with social issues and the class system.  He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend. John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

      He is now far better known for his novels, particularly The Forsyte Saga, his trilogy about the eponymous family of the same name. These books, as with many of his other works, deal with social class, upper-middle class lives in particular. Although always sympathetic to his characters, he reveals their insular, snobbish, and somewhat greedy attitudes and suffocating moral codes. He is now viewed as one of the first from the Edwardian era to challenge some of the ideals of society depicted in the literature of Victorian England.

      In his writings he campaigns for a variety of causes, including prison reform, women's rights, animal welfare, and the opposition of censorship as well as a recurring theme of an unhappy marriage from the women’s side. During World War I he worked in a hospital in France as an orderly after being passed over for military service.

      He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1929, after earlier turning down a knighthood, and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932 though he was too ill to attend.

      John Galsworthy died from a brain tumour at his London home, Grove Lodge, Hampstead on January 31st 1933. In accordance with his will he was cremated at Woking with his ashes then being scattered over the South Downs from an aeroplane.

      Index of Contents

      PERSONS OF THE PLAY

      ACT I

      SCENE I

      SCENE II

      ACT II

      SCENE I

      SCENE II

      ACT III

      SCENE I

      SCENE II

      SCENE III

      JOHN GALSWORTHY – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      JOHN GALSWORTHY – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

      PERSONS OF THE PLAY

      In the Order of Appearance

      CHARLES WINSOR - Owner of Meldon Court, near Newmarket

      LADY ADELA - His Wife

      FERDINAND DE LEVIS - Young, rich, and new

      TREISURE - Winsor's Butler

      GENERAL CANYNGE - A Racing Oracle

      MARGARET ORME - A Society Girl

      CAPTAIN RONALD DANDY, D.S.O - Retired

      MABEL - His Wife

      INSPECTOR DEDE - Of the County Constabulary

      ROBERT - Winsor's Footman

      A CONSTABLE - Attendant on Dede

      AUGUSTUS BOBBING - A Clubman

      LORD ST ERTH - A Peer of the Realm

      A FOOTMAN - Of the Club

      MAJOR COLFORD - A Brother Officer of Dancy's

      EDWARD GRAVITER - A Solicitor

      A YOUNG CLERK - Of Twisden & Graviter's

      GILMAN - A Large Grocer

      JACOB TWISDEN - Senior Partner of Twisden & Graviter

      RICARDOS - An Italian, in Wine

      THE ACTS

      ACT I

      SCENE I - Charles Winsor’s dressing-room at Meldon Court, near Newmarket, of a night in early October.

      SCENE II - De Levis's Bedroom at Meldon Court, a few minutes later.

      ACT II

      SCENE I - The Card Room of a London Club between four and five in the afternoon, three weeks later.

      SCENE II - The Sitting-room of the Dancy’s Flat, the following morning.

      ACT III

      SCENE I - Old Mr Jacob Twisden’s room at Twisden & Graviter’s in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at four in the afternoon, three months later.

      SCENE II - The same, next morning at half-past ten.

      SCENE III - The Sitting-room of the Dancy’s Flat, an hour later.

      LOYALTIES

      ACT I

      SCENE I

      The dressing-room of CHARLES WINSOR, owner of Meldon Court, near Newmarket; about eleven-thirty at night.  The room has pale grey walls, unadorned; the curtains are drawn over a window Back Left Centre.  A bed lies along the wall, Left.  An open door, Right Back, leads into Lady Adela's bedroom; a door, Right Forward, into a long corridor, on to which abut rooms in a row, the whole length of the house's left wing.  Winsor’s dressing-table, with a light over it, is Stage Right of the curtained window.  Pyjamas are laid out on the bed, which is turned back.  Slippers are handy, and all the usual gear of a well-appointed bed-dressing-room.  CHARLES WINSOR, a tall, fair, good-looking man about thirty-eight, is taking off a smoking jacket.

      WINSOR

      Hallo!  Adela!

      VOICE OF LADY ADELA [From her bedroom]

      Hallo!

      WINSOR

      In bed?

      VOICE OF LADY ADELA

      No.

      [She appears in the doorway in under-garment and a wrapper.  She, too, is fair, about thirty-five, rather delicious, and suggestive of porcelain.

      WINSOR

      Win at Bridge?

      LADY ADELA

      No fear.

      WINSOR

      Who did?

      LADY ADELA

      Lord St Erth and Ferdy De Levis.

      WINSOR

      That young man has too much luck—the young bounder won two races to-day; and he's as rich as Croesus.

      LADY ADELA

      Oh!  Charlie, he did look so exactly as if he'd sold me a carpet when I was paying him.

      WINSOR [Changing into slippers] 

      His father did sell carpets, wholesale, in the City.

      LADY ADELA

      Really?  And you say I haven't intuition!  [With a finger on her lips]  Morison's in there.

      WINSOR [Motioning towards the door, which she shuts] 

      Ronny Dancy took a tenner off him, anyway, before dinner.

      LADY ADELA

      No!  How?

      WINSOR

      Standing jump on to a bookcase four feet high.  De Levis had to pay up, and sneered at him for making money by parlour tricks.  That young Jew gets himself disliked.

      LADY ADELA

      Aren't you rather prejudiced?

      WINSOR

      Not a bit.  I like Jews.  That's not against him—rather the contrary these days.  But he pushes himself.  The General tells me he's deathly keen to get into the Jockey Club.  [Taking off his tie]  It's amusing to see him trying to get round old St Erth.

      LADY

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