The Forsyte Saga traces the changing fortunes of the wealthy Forsyte dynasty through fifty years of material triumph and emotional disaster This first volume begins as the nineteenth century is drawing to a close, and the upper middle classes, with their property and propriety, are becoming a dying section of society The Forsytes are blind to this fact, clinging to their conventions and 'brilliant respectability' As dignified Soames Forsyte struggles to uphold the old moral code in the face of the social revolution resulting from the Great War, his wife Irene's extraordinary beauty causes even more disruption The bitter feud between them will come to split the Forsyte family for two generations