SOURCE: "Sinjohn becomes Galsworthy," in John Galsworthy: A Biography, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1976, pp. 66-71.

Dupré is an English novelist and biographer. In the following excerpt, she investigates the satirical nature of the short stories in The Man of Devon.

[It is in his] collection of stories, published under the title The Man of Devon in September 1901, that Galsworthy claims to have really found the satirical vein within himself. 'I owe Swithin much, for he first released the satirist in me, and is moreover, the only one of my characters whom I killed before I gave him life, for it is in the Man of Property that Swithin Forsyte more memorably lives' [Preface to the Manaton edition, Vol. IV].

Galsworthy's friend and biographer, R. H. Mottram, sees this story, 'The Salvation of Swithin Forsyte', as the real turning point in its author's career, and one of the most biographically...