By this time the governess is dead and he marries Irene. Later, he finds himself a trustee of some money his father, Old Jolyon, has left to Irene.

Typical of his laissez-faire, let-any-chap-do-what-he-wants-to attitude is his failure to confront Bosinney and ask his intentions towards poor June. Young Jolyon had previously left his wife and June to run off with the governess and have two very nice children. Irene eventually leaves Soames and lives alone, abroad. The Soames/Irene marriage is unhappy and she begins an affair with Bosinney, which is pretty bad behaviour on both their parts. Although there is a large cast of characters, the book is really about Soames and his cousin Young Jolyon, complete opposites in character. Present are Soames Forsyte and his wife Irene. The story opens with the Forsyte family gathered in all their Victorian splendour and prosperity to celebrate the engagement of June, daughter of Young Jolyon Forsyte, to a penniless architect called Philip Bosinney. In his introduction, Galsworthy says that many readers will feel sorry for Soames indeed, he feels sorry for him himself but that should not make people take a dislike to Irene. I should say straight away that I am pro-Soames and anti-Irene, so if you take the opposite view, you can stop reading now and save yourself annoyance. I read my old omnibus edition, which takes us as far as Fleur’s marriage.

I hope to deal with those later but will begin with Galsworthy. I read an awful lot of series straight through. 2021 has been a very difficult year for me, which is probably why I sought out books I’d read before.

The forsyte saga books in order