Barnes Noble imprint: 2826 books

This 1912 play focuses on one of Galsworthy's perennial subjects:  the injustice inherent in an economic and political system that privileges the rich over the poor—in this case, in the realm of marriage.  Through a plot involving two forced marriages, Galsworthy exposes middle- and upper-class hypocrisy.

Subtitled "A Comedy in Three Acts for Idealists and Others," this 1922 drama, set in the post-World War I era, was the third in Galsworthy's Fifth Series of plays. Taking place in the home of Geoffrey March, the action occurs on a Thursday, when the window cleaner discusses his daughter’s misfortune with the family and the play continues the following fortnight when the cleaner returns.

This 1914 drama follows a moral politician, Stephen More, as he watches his powerful country plan an attack on a small country. What’s worse, his government is using trumped up charges in order to overtake and add the small country to their empire. More feels powerless as pressures from his family and parliament keep him quiet.

This 1919 collection of Galsworthy’s poems is true to its title, splitting into three sections: moods, songs, and doggerels. The volume contains over fifty poems, including “A Dream,” “On a Soldier’s Funeral,” “Devon to Me!,” “When Love if Young,” “To My God,” “Life?,” and many others.

This 1913 play is a study of that peculiar English malady:  good form.  Clare Dedmond, the unhappy wife of George Dedmond, longs for a life of freedom and art.  A friendship with the novelist Malise seems to offer her the chance to escape the deadening Dedmond household . . . but at a great cost.

This 1909 "Play on the Letter 'I'"—as the subtitle puts it—is about a young woman, the Joy of the title. After the separation of her parents, she discovers that her mother inhabits a wider and wilder world than she had suspected, and Joy must come to terms with it one way or another.

This 1912 drama, subtitled "A Fantasy," is a sharp satire on the hypocrisies of those who set themselves up to help the less fortunate but who are really pursuing selfish agendas.  Here Christopher Wellwyn, an artist of limited means, generously shares all that he has with anyone in need of it, alienating his practical daughter, Ann.

This 1920 play by Galsworthy—made into a 1931 film by Alfred Hitchcock—features a collision between two families:  the "old-money" Hillcrists and the nouveau-riche Hornblowers.  As the patriarchs of the two families squabble over a piece of land, an innocent young woman will pay the price.

This 1922 drama, set in the post-World War I era, concerns a wealthy young Jewish man who is robbed by a war hero fallen on hard times.  A searing yet fair indictment of anti-Semitism, the play dissects religion, class, and ethics in exposing the ugly roots of British racism.

This 1908 collection of short sketches and essays contains pieces on everything from the everyday to the philosophical, including: "The Lost Dog," "Demos," "Old Age," "The Careful Man," "Fear," "Fashion," "Sport," "Money," "Progress," "Holiday," "Facts," "Power," "The House of Silence," "Order," "The Mother," "Comfort," "A Child," "Justice," "Hope," and the title essay.

A Family Man in Three Acts was written in 1922. The story centers on John Builder, who has a wife Julia, two daughters, and owns a firm with his brother. The play takes place over the course of only two days. Like the plays of George Bernard Shaw, Galsworthy’s plays address the class system and social issues.

This 1869 anthology of Ruskin’s oeuvre really does range as wide as its title suggests. Ruskin’s gaze encompasses plants, animals, the sky, rivers, the waves of the sea, the sculptors of ancient Egypt, the Renaissance painters, color and form, Shakespeare, Byron, Laurence Sterne, Sir Walter Scott, utopianism, romance, patriotism, education, and “The Holy Comforter” in poetry and prose.

Published in 1872, this volume collects ten lectures that Ruskin gave at Oxford University on the subject of the relation of the natural sciences to art—including, “The Function in Art of the Faculty called by the Greeks s???a,” “The Relation of Wise Art to Wise Science,” and “Introduction to Elementary Exercises in Historic Art: The Heraldic Ordinaries.”

This second in a three-volume series on Venetian art and architecture focuses on the Byzantine and Gothic periods. Ruskin discusses the palaces belonging to each era, along with the “nature” of the Gothic and the beautiful islands of Murano and Torcello in the Byzantine period.