Galsworthy’s first novel was also the one he came to define as his most important, and it set the template in style and content for all his subsequent work. Galsworthy wrote the novel as a wide-ranged traveller returned home, prepared to confront the entrenched and self-serving moneyed elite. The pharisaical egoism of England’s ruling class (with which he was familiar, as a member) remained his focus throughout most of his work.

Told through the eyes of Richard Shelton, who can feel at home netiher among his ‘natural’ privileged class nor the poor of his acquaintance, this is a compelling satire on the hypocrisy of the upper classes and the narrow-mindedness of the English abroad, The Island Pharisees is a brave and important novel by one of the leading British writers of the twentieth century.

John Galsworthy - John Galsworthy was born in 1867. An early encounter with Joseph Conrad helped inspire him to write, and he went on to enjoy a successful career as one of the most widely read novelists of his day. Galsworthy was elected first president of the International PEN literary club in 1921. Today he is best remembered for his Forsyte Saga, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932. He died in 1933, aged 65.

Please follow this link for more information about the life of John Galsworthy.

John Galsworthy and International P.E.N.



Anthony Gardner - In his role over recent years as Editor of the Royal Society of Literature's annual Review, Anthony Gardner has built a reputation for fine judgment and eclectic scholarship in the field of recent English letters.

The Royal Society of Literature

---

By the same author or foreword writer:
The Dark Flower By John Galsworthy;  Anthony Gardner (Introduction)
Mr Perrin and Mr Traill By Hugh Walpole;  Anthony Gardner (Foreword)
The Conclave By Michael Bracewell;  Anthony Gardner (Foreword)