A review by philipcreurer
A Modern Comedy by John Galsworthy

I thought I would go back and re-read this trilogy as we live through our "once in a century" pandemic. It was written within the decade of the years that concluded WWI and faced the Spanish Flu. It ends in 1926 (published in 1929). John Galsworthy himself describes the times: "Everything being now relative, there is no longer absolute dependence to be placed on God, Free Trade, Marriage, Consols, Coal or Caste." Comparing it with the society that preceded it, he says: "This is really the fundamental difference between the present and the past generations. People will not provide against that which they cannot see ahead." A satire of the British well-to-do classes and considered to be a reflection of the "Spirit of the Age", it provides an interesting mirror to hold up against our own ideas of a progressive society struck by world calamity.