Galsworthy

Some time ago, wanting to read a particular story by John Galsworthy, I bought the second volume of his collected stories, collected under the name 'Caravan'. For which see reference 1.

I am not now sure why, but I did not read any of the other stories at that time. I did, however, take the book with me on my recent excursion. Reading all of it, quite quickly.

Most, but not all, the stories are in solidly upper middle class settings in England. Perhaps the milieu in which Galsworthy felt most at home. Perhaps that was what his public wanted. The word 'Forsyte' occurred once, although I believe that there is rather more of it in the present volume, presumably the left-overs from his well known saga.

Some of the stories are about the unpleasant behaviour of some of those middle classes during the First World War, people who did not have to fight themselves, but who could come down hard on young men who did - and who had failed in some way. People who, on this account, were thoroughly unpleasant - and I dare say that there were plenty of them. Perhaps people without children of their own, getting so pointlessly killed.

Sadly, at some point, some water got spilled on the book, which while not fatal, left it rather badly damaged, and on return home I thought I might as well go for the collected edition. This has now turned up, a decently produced hardback edition, probably a 'popular' edition, of 900 odd pages, undated but probably from around 1925. Around 55 stories of varying lengths written between 1900 and 1925. So just about a century old.

From Clearwater Books of Norwood and reference 2. Not only was the book very reasonably priced and in good condition - rather better than the one it replaced - but it came with the finest wrapping that I have come across for a long time. With the outer wrapping being proper bookseller brown paper. Someone, who knew what they were doing and had gone to a bit of trouble. Once reasonably common practise, now rather uncommon. A pleasant bonus!

Then while looking for an illustrative image, I came across the copy snapped above. A signed deluxe version for some very large multiple of what I paid. Something that I have never been particularly interested in: what I want is what is sometimes called a 'reading copy', which is exactly what I have got. With pages that stay where you put them without having to hold them down with something.

And while the image at the top is not the actual book, it is another copy of the same book, from the same edition.

A fine start to a new year in books.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/03/the-apple-tree.html.

Reference 2: http://www.clearwaterbooks.co.uk/.