Editing The Forsyte Saga (section)

==Sequels==

[[File:Forsyte Chronicles Diagram.svg|thumb|Works within the Forsyte Chronicles]]

Galsworthy's sequel to ''The Forsyte Saga'' was ''A Modern Comedy'', a further trilogy written in the years 1924 to 1928. This comprises the novel ''The White Monkey''; an interlude, ''A Silent Wooing''; a second novel, ''The Silver Spoon''; a second interlude, ''Passers By''; and a third novel, ''Swan Song''. The principal characters are Soames and Fleur, and the second saga ends with the death of Soames in 1926. This is also the point reached at the end of the 1967 television series.

===''The White Monkey'' (1924)===
Fleur Forsyte has settled into married life with Michael Mont, following her aborted romance with Jon Forsyte. Unbeknownst to Michael, his best friend Wilfred Desert has also fallen in love with Fleur. Fleur seems to treat Wilfred’s affection as an amusement in her otherwise dull life.

Michael works for a publishing firm and catches one of his employees, Bickett, stealing books and is forced to fire him. Feeling bad for a man who was trying to help his sick wife, Michael helps Bickett’s wife Victorine gain a job posing as a nude model for various artists. Victorine eventually gains enough money for the two of them to move to Australia.

Soames Forsyte, Fleur’s father, is on the board for a company with extensive capital invested overseas. A young man comes to him and advises that he has overheard that the Chairman of the Board, Mr Emerson, has been taking commissions to invest in failing stock, losing a considerable amount of the shareholders’ money in the process. Soames and Lawrence Mont, Michael’s father, attempt to bring this to the attention of the Board but are too late to stop Mr Emerson escaping prosecution. They both resign in protest.

Soames also visits his cousin George shortly before his death and secures a Chinese painting, the titular ‘White Monkey’. He gives the painting to Fleur and Michael.

Eventually, Wilfred tires of Fleur tormenting him and leaves to go to the East. A depressed Fleur turns to Michael and falls pregnant and eventually gives birth to a son, Christopher (or Kit).

===A Silent Wooing (Interlude 1927)===
In America, Jon goes on a picnic with his friend Francis Wilmot and meets his sister Anne. Anne and Jon go to explore an Indian mound and become lost, returning hours later. Jon then visits Francis and Anne at home and falls in love with her. They eventually marry.

===''The Silver Spoon'' (1926)===
The book focuses mainly on Michael Mont’s political career, and Fleur’s social activities. Jon Forsyte’s brother-in-law, Francis Wilmot, arrives in London, staying with Fleur and Michael. He attends one of Fleur’s evening parties, and is smitten with Marjorie Ferrar, grand-daughter of the [[Marquess]] of Shropshire, and a lively member of a ‘fast set’.

Soames overhears her talking disparagingly about Fleur, and strong words are exchanged. Fleur writes some injudicious letters about the incident, and Marjorie is persuaded to launch a libel action. Soames, Sir Lawrence Mont and Lord Shropshire attempt to mediate, but in vain, and neither party will back down.

Michael chucks publishing, and launches his political career. His maiden speech promotes a scheme known as ‘Foggartism’, which advocates a policy of child migration to the Dominions. He also attempts to assist a group of ‘down-and-outs’, but the project only partly succeeds. He has a run-in with Marjorie’s fiancée, Sir Alexander McGown, a fiery Scottish MP.

The libel case comes to court. As a result of legal manoevering by Soames, Marjorie’s views on modern morality, including the reading of ‘advanced literature’, are aired in public. She defends her opinions bravely, but is persuaded to quietly settle out of court, without an apology from Fleur.

Now deeply in debt, and refusing to disclose her various love affairs to McGown, he breaks their engagement. Lord Shropshire offers to pay her debts, on her word as a lady to pay cash for her needs in future.

Marjorie is now the toast of her set, and Fleur is humiliated. She asks Michael to take her ‘around the world’. She and Soames decide to go together, with Michael joining them later, when Parliament rises.

===Passers-By (Interlude 1927)=== 
Soames is in the final days of his holiday with Fleur and Michael in Washington when he becomes aware that Jon, Anne and Irene Forsyte are in town and staying at the same hotel. He works to ensure Fleur remains unaware of their existence, though he cannot stop himself from spying on Irene playing the piano. They return to England with only Soames aware of the near encounter.

===''Swan Song'' (1928)===
The General Strike is called. Many Forsytes enrol as [[special constable]]s. Michael Mont’s sympathies are with the strikers, but he can do nothing to help. Fleur takes over the running of a canteen for the volunteers who will keep the trains running. Holly joins her, as well as Anne, Jon’s wife. Jon volunteers to stoke an engine; he eats at the canteen, but he and Fleur do not meet.
Anne and Jon decide to stay in England, and buy a farm in Sussex..

Disillusioned with Foggartism, Michael is drawn into a scheme promoted by his uncle, Rev. Hilary Charwell, to buy and convert the worst of the London slums. He and his father help to set up the Fund, and recruit rich and influential men to invest in the scheme. Soames is co-opted as legal advisor.

Michael visits June Forsyte, who tells him the story of Fleur and Jon’s affair, and something of the tangled family history, which he hadn’t previously known. 

Val Dartie is visited by an old college pal, Stainforth, now fallen on hard times, who claims to know something about an employee at Val’s [[racehorse]] stables, and offers to sell him the information. He later forges Val’s name on a [[cheque]].

Fleur sets up a rest home in the country for working girls, but it’s really an excuse to be close to Jon. She schemes to arrange ‘accidental’ meetings. Jon and Fleur have one last fling, but when Anne becomes pregnant, he breaks it off. Fleur is devastated.

A fire breaks out in Soames’ house, almost certainly started accidentally by Fleur. Most of the pictures are saved, but a heavy painting falls and hits Soames as he tries to rescue Fleur. He is badly injured, and dies a few days later.

===Later works===
Galsworthy wrote one further trilogy, ''[[End of the Chapter]]'', comprising ''Maid in Waiting'', ''Flowering Wilderness'', and ''Over the River'' (also known as ''One More River''), chiefly dealing with Michael Mont's young cousin, Dinny Cherrell.

The three trilogies have been republished under the collective title of ''The Forsyte Chronicles''.

In 1930 Galsworthy published ''[[On Forsyte 'Change]]'', which deals in the main with the older Forsytes before the events chronicled in ''The Man of Property''. Galsworthy states in a foreword that "They have all been written since ''Swan Song'' was finished but in place they come between the Saga and the Comedy ..." By way of explanation he writes that "It is hard to part suddenly and finally from those with whom one has lived so long; and these footnotes do really, I think, help to fill in and round out the chronicles of the Forsyte family."

; Contents:
# The Buckles of Superior Dosset, 1821–63
# Sands of Time, 1821–63
# Hester's Little Tour, 1845
# Tiimothy's Narrow Squeak, 1851
# Aunt Juley's Courtship, 1855
# Nicholas Rex, 1864
# A Sad Affair, 1867
# Revolt at Roger's, 1870
# June's First Lame Duck, 1876
# Dog at Timothy's, 1878
# Midsummer Madness, 1880
# The Hondekoeter, 1880
# Cry of Peacock, 1883
# Francie's Fourpenny Foreigner, 1888
# Four-In-Hand Forsyte, 1890
# The Sorrows of Tweetyman, 1895
# The Dromios, 1900
# A Forsyte Encounters the People, 1917
# Soames and the Flag, 1914–1918

In 1994 Suleika Dawson published a sequel to ''The Forsytes'' titled ''[[The Forsytes: The Saga Continues]]''  in which Soames's daughter, Fleur, Lady Mont, is the main character. She has been a dutiful wife and mother, and has long forgotten her love for Jon Forsyte, but when tragedy brings Jon back to England Fleur is determined to recapture the past and the love of her life.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-30849-6 |title=Fiction Book Review: The Forsytes by Suleika Dawson ISBN 978-0-385-30849-6 |work=PublishersWeekly.com |access-date=2018-09-30 |language=en}}</ref>