When Galsworthy died in 1933, he enjoyed such widespread, even international, fame both as novelist and dramatist that it is difficult to believe he was almost unknown till he was nearly forty. Even 'The Island Pharisees', the first book he published under his own name, attracted little attention for some time. That was in 1904. But two years later Galsworthy scored two resounding triumphs with his first play The Silver Box, and with 'The Man of Property' (the first part of 'The Forsyte Saga' - though the rest of the 'Saga' had to wait sixteen years or so before he took up the threads again).

After that, Galsworthy's career was an affair of 'roses, roses all the way', despite his self-chosen role of thorn in the side of ' the social conscience'. He goaded the influential middle-class public, but not as Shaw and others have done. His criticism always so obviously came from 'one of the family' that it was met with tolerance - and even heeded, as in the case of Justice (1910) which actually led to mitigation of the cruelty of solitary confinement.

Justice was written at a time when Galsworthy was still in open revolt against the smugness and self-righteousness he perceived in his own class and environment. Towards the end of his life he became more aware of the virtues latent in that class and Soames Forsyte gradually changed from almost-villain to hero.

(An appreciation, by Leon M. Lion, of 'Justice' and its author will be found on page 7.)