Reproduction of the original.

You can't irritate me more than by having secrets. See what that led to in your sister's case. And, by the way, I'm going to put an end to that this morning. You'll be glad to have her back, won't you.

"The Little Man" is a farcical drama by English novelist and playwright John Galsworthy, who was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. Filled with intriguing characters and absorbing exchanges, this work is written in a naturalistic style, examining some controversial ethical and social problems.

The Forsyte Saga was the title originally destined for that part of it which is called "The Man of Property"; and to adopt it for the collected chronicles of the Forsyte family has indulged the Forsytean tenacity that is in all of us. The word Saga might be objected to on the ground that it connotes the heroic and that there is little heroism in these pages. But it is used with a suitable irony; and, after all, this long tale, though it may deal with folk in frock coats, furbelows, and a gilt-edged period, is not devoid of the essential heat of conflict. Discounting for the gigantic stature and blood-thirstiness of old days, as they have come down to us in fairy-tale and legend, the folk of the old Sagas were Forsytes, assuredly, in their possessive instincts, and as little proof against the inroads of beauty and passion as Swithin, Soames, or even Young Jolyon. And if heroic figures, in days that never were, seem to startle out from their surroundings in fashion unbecoming to a Forsyte of the Victorian era, we may be sure that tribal instinct was even then the prime force, and that "family" and the sense of home and property counted as they do to this day, for all the recent efforts to "talk them out." So many people have written and claimed that their families were the originals of the Forsytes that one has been almost encouraged to believe in the typicality of an imagined species. Manners change and modes evolve, and "Timothy's on the Bayswater Road" becomes a nest of the unbelievable in all except essentials; we shall not look upon its like again, nor perhaps on such a one as James or Old Jolyon. And yet the figures of Insurance Societies and the utterances of Judges reassure us daily that our earthly paradise is still a rich preserve, where the wild raiders, Beauty and Passion, come stealing in, filching security from beneath our noses. As surely as a dog will bark at a brass band, so will the essential Soames in human nature ever rise up uneasily against the dissolution which hovers round the folds of ownership.

The book traces the relationship of a miserly bookseller and the woman he marries. Alongside their story is the story of Elsie their servant and her love for Joe. The characters bring about their own downfall or survival; the book is a mixture of melancholy and hopefulness. There is also an interesting portrait of an old-fashioned family doctor who is the deus ex machina. Although the book is set just after the end of the First World War, the characters’ attitudes and beliefs hark back to the Victorian era rather than being influenced by any new ideas.

"A Family Man : in three acts" by John Galsworthy is a play that follows John Builder and his family. Exploring the ups and downs of being a family man and what that meant in the during the time it was written, this book is an at times heart-wrenching tale that is all too familiar.