Editing John Galsworthy (section)

===First books; marriage===

[[File:Galsworthy-at-Wingstone.png|thumb|Galsworthy at Wingstone|alt=Clean-shaven white man in early middle age standing in front of a rural building]]

Galsworthy published his first work of fiction in 1897, when he was aged 30. It was a volume of nine short stories, ''From the Four Winds'', printed at his own expense. The book received many favourable reviews, but sales were modest.<ref name=Dupré60>Dupré, p. 60</ref> Nevertheless, the young publisher [[Gerald Duckworth]] was willing to take a chance on Galsworthy's second book, a novel, ''Jocelyn'', which he published in 1898.<ref>Dupré, p. 62</ref> The author later dismissed his first two books as prentice works – he called ''From the Four Winds'' "that dreadful little book"<ref name=Dupré60/> – and over the next few years he honed his skills.<ref>Dupré, p. 61</ref> He later said that he was writing fiction for five years before he mastered even the basic techniques.<ref name=times>Obituary, ''The Times'', 1 February 1933, p. 15</ref> He studied the works of [[Ivan Turgenev|Turgenev]] and [[Guy de Maupassant|Maupassant]], learning from their literary craftsmanship.<ref name=g98/>

While his father remained alive Galsworthy wrote under a pseudonym, John Sinjon, in whose name his first four books were published.<ref name=g98>Gindin, p. 98</ref> His 1901 collection of short stories, ''A Man of Devon'', included "The Salvation of Swithin Forsyte", the first episode in what he later developed into a three-generation family saga, known collectively as ''The Forsyte Chronicles''. Two years later he began writing ''[[The Forsyte Saga#The Man of Property (1906)|The Man of Property]]'', the first novel in the sequence.<ref name=odnb/>

In 1904 Galsworthy's father died, and there was no longer any cause for secrecy about his son's relationship with Ada. After the funeral the couple went to stay at Wingstone, a farmhouse in the village of [[Manaton]] on the edge of [[Dartmoor]], which he had come across when on a walking tour. It was the first of many visits they made there, and four years later Galsworthy took a long lease of part of the building, which was the couple's second home until 1923.<ref name=lg>Cooper, pp. 322–324</ref> Arthur Galsworthy sued for divorce in February 1905;<ref name=divorce/> the divorce was finalised on 13 September of that year and Ada married John Galsworthy ten days later.{{refn|In the English divorce courts of the time there was an interval between the provisional judgement  granting a divorce (the [[decree nisi]]) and the formal dissolution of the marriage (the [[decree absolute]]).<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192897497.001.0001/acref-9780192897497-e-1046 "decree absolute"], ''A Dictionary of Law'', Oxford University Press, 2022 {{subscription required}}</ref>|group=n}} The marriage, which was childless, lasted until his death. Ada was a key figure in the life of her second husband, and his biographers have attributed to her an important influence on his development as a novelist and playwright.<ref>Dupré, p. 50; Holloway, p. 15; and Gindin, p. 85</ref><ref>Fisher, John. "The Ada Galsworthy Saga", ''The Times'', 18 September 1976, p. 6</ref>