In Chancery forms the second part of John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga trilogy of love, power, money, and family feuding; chronicling the downfall of an upper middle class family in the turbulent period of social change at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries. It tells of the struggle between Soames and his beautiful wife Irene, who leaves him but cannot persuade him to grant a divorce.