A prolific novelist, playwright and short-story writer, Galsworthy is considered one of the most successful English authors of the early twentieth century. Born 14 August 1867 at his wealthy family's estate near London, Galsworthy was a member of the upper-class Victorian society he later challenged in his fiction His work is admired for capturing the proud but declining spirit of upperclass society from the 1880s to the years following World War I. While revealing the shortcomings of society, particularly its material and consumer values, Galsworthy's best work also manages to communicate the possibility of change for the better, or the poignant reality that the possibility for betterment has passed unacknowledged before the eyes of his characters.

Educated at Oxford to be a lawyer, Galsworthy never took up the practice, choosing instead to travel. In 1891, at the age of twenty-four, Galsworthy sailed to Russia, South Africa, Australia, and Fiji...