Born on 14 August 1867, John Galsworthy was educated at Harrow and Oxford, before being called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1890. His first work, entitled From the Four Winds, a collection of stories, was published in 1897 under the pseudonym John Sinjohn and he continued to use this name when publishing his early novels, including Jocelyn (1898) and The Island Pharisees (1904). However, his first major success came in 1906, when his first play, The Silver Box, was put on at the Court Theatre. It was also in this year that Galsworthy wrote the first of what was to become known as The Forsyte Saga, The Man of Property, which was to be followed by The Indian Summer of a Forsyte (1918), In Chancery (1920), Awakening (1920) and To Let (1921). Galsworthy was a prolific writer and was awarded Les Palmes d'Or by Belgium in 1919, numerous honorary doctorates and, most notably, in 1932, the Nobel Prize for Literature. He turned down a knighthood in 1918. He died on 31 January 1933.
