The Forsyte Saga · Characters
Character guide
Key figures in The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy.
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Soames Forsyte
major
Also known as Soames, Mr. Soames, Mr. Soames Forsyte, Mr. Forsyte, Master Soames, Uncle Soames, Old Soames, Soames Forsyte, the Soames Forsytes
Soames moves through the family as its most cautious and most acquisitive member, a man whose habitual sniff registers each room for flaws in taste and value. He has married Irene, a woman whose indifference he cannot convert into affection, and his instinct to possess her only widens the distance between them. His suspicion of the architect Bosinney, and his compulsion to build a house at Robin Hill as a monument to his ownership, set the family's quiet war in motion.
Old Jolyon Forsyte
major
Also known as Old Jolyon, Jolyon, Mr. Jolyon Forsyte, Jolyon Forsyte, Uncle Jolyon, old Jolyon Forsyte, the first Jolyon
Old Jolyon presides over the clan from Stanhope Gate, a man whose principles have outlived his pleasures and whose estrangement from his artist son still smarts. In Irene he discovers a late, unacknowledged hunger for beauty and companionship, arranging his Tuesdays and Thursdays around her as if they were business. His private thaw matters because it exposes the crack in Forsyteism that the younger generation will either widen or seal.
James Forsyte
major
Also known as James, Uncle James, James Forsyte, Mr. James Forsyte, Mr. James, dear James
James belongs to the anxious wing of the family, forever inquiring after other people's health, income, and intentions while suspecting the worst of all three. His worry over Soames's marriage and his distrust of Bosinney make him a barometer of the clan's unease. He matters because his fussing carries the family's unspoken dread that property, once acquired, can still be lost.
Irene Forsyte
major
Also known as Irene, Irene Heron, Mrs. Heron, Aunt Irene, Mrs. Irene Heron, Irene Jolyon
Irene married Soames without love and has been paying for it ever since, her maddening smile and iris-coloured dresses making her the object of the family's fascinated scrutiny. She dances with other men, dines with old Jolyon, and gives her husband nothing but the form of a wife. Her refusal to be owned is the pressure point on which the Forsyte idea of property begins to split.
June Forsyte
major
Also known as June, Miss June Forsyte, Miss Forsyte, dear June, Auntie June
June is the family's most unguarded member, a girl who loves beauty almost to the point of madness and cannot bear a sleeping dog. Her engagement to Philip Bosinney brings an outsider into the Forsyte circle and, with him, the question of whether art or property will govern the new house at Robin Hill. Her fierce partisanship makes her both the engine of the engagement and its most vulnerable casualty.
Young Jolyon Forsyte
major
Also known as young Jolyon, Jolyon, Cousin Jolyon, Jolyon Forsyte, the first Mrs. Young Jolyon
Young Jolyon left his first wife and his prospects for love, and the clan has never quite forgiven him for choosing feeling over form. He returns to the family orbit as a man of principle and irony, raising his children Holly and Jon with a freedom the Forsytes find suspicious. His willingness to live outside the code makes him the moral counterweight to Soames, and the channel through which the next generation inherits both the beauty and the wound.
Philip Bosinney
major
Also known as Bosinney, Phil, Mr. Philip Bosinney, young Bosinney, Philip Baynes Bosinney, this Bosinney
Bosinney enters the Forsyte orbit as June's fiancé and the architect of Soames's new house at Robin Hill — a position that places him at the exact intersection of family money, family pride, and family suspicion. His uncle calls him clever but feckless, one of those men who sleep all day and work all night, with a streak of his eccentric father's Byronism and not an ounce of vice. The Forsytes tolerate him because he might steady down; the tragedy is that his imagination, which they cannot value, is precisely what makes him dangerous.
Fleur Forsyte
major
Also known as Fleur, Fine Fleur Forsyte, young Fleur, Miss Fleur, Fleur Forsyte, Caprice
Fleur arrives in the Saga's later movement as the efflorescence of everything the Forsytes have accumulated — beauty, money, will — and the first of them to pursue desire without the family's instinct for self-protection. Her charm is real and so is her calculation; she has inherited her father's grip on what he wants and her mother's capacity to unsettle. She matters because the younger generation's romance replays the older generation's wounds, and she is the one holding the match.
Jon Forsyte
major
Also known as Jon, Little Jon, little Jon, Master Jon, Mr. Jon, Poor Jon
Jon grows up in the countryside under his father's tolerant eye and his mother's unspoken sorrow, an artist's son with none of the Forsyte acquisitiveness and all of its capacity for feeling. His innocence is genuine, which is exactly what makes him vulnerable: he loves Fleur without knowing what the name Forsyte has cost his mother. His romance with her forces the Saga's buried history back into the open and makes the sins of the fathers payable by the children.
Winifred Dartie
supporting
Also known as Winifred, Dartie, Winifred Dartie, dear Winifred, Aunt Winifred
Winifred was founded well — the furniture chosen by Soames, the marriage arranged with the family's approval — and she has held her position with a plucky, fashionable composure through two decades of her husband's plausible ruin. When Dartie's conduct finally crosses the line, she does not collapse; she crumples a letter, takes a sniff from a gold-topped bottle, and consults her brother as lawyer and ally. Her parallel predicament to Soames's own makes her the quiet mirror of the novel's central question: what does a Forsyte do when the property is a person?
Montague Dartie
supporting
Also known as Dartie, Montague Dartie, Monty, Mr. Montague Dartie, Mr. and Mrs. Dartie
Dartie dazzled the Forsytes into the marriage with plausibility and savoir faire, and has spent twenty-one years confirming Soames's earliest diagnosis of his nature. In his forty-fifth year, feeling it is now or never, he pawns his wife's pearls for a Spanish dancer, waves a revolver, and writes a farewell note on Iseeum Club paper. He is the Saga's comic menace and its cautionary figure: the outsider the family let in, whose recklessness exposes how thin the line is between Forsyte respectability and its opposite.
Val Dartie
supporting
Also known as Val, Val Dartie, Master Val, young Val, young Val Dartie, little Publius Dartie, Cato Publius Valerius
Val carries his father's looks and easy manner but not his father's weakness; half Dartie as he is, he has been perfectly faithful to Holly for twenty years, and knows she is his superior without grudging it. Tanned, freckled, and handicapped by the leg that probably saved his life, he lives actively with horses and takes life as it comes. He matters as the Saga's proof that the next generation can choose differently — and as the quiet host whose Sussex farm becomes the stage for Jon and Fleur's collision.
Holly Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Holly, little Holly, Miss Holly, Auntie Holly, Holly Forsyte
Holly belongs to the Robin Hill household that June runs with small, decided hands, a house her father treats as a place he merely lodges in between painting trips abroad. Raised alongside her brother Jolly under their father's whimsical, brotherly detachment, she learns early to watch rather than declare. Her softness and clear sight make her a counterweight to the Forsyte instinct for possession, and her later attachment to Val Dartie pulls the family's next generation into the old feud.
Jolly Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Jolly, little Jolly, Jolly Forsyte, Young Jolly Forsyte
Jolly grows up at Robin Hill as his father's perfect friend, the two of them careful and competitive together at the annual cricket match, never quite needing to talk about what they would do for each other. He carries the Forsyte self-consciousness without its acquisitiveness, more his father's son than the family's. His coming of age carries the saga forward into a generation that will spend itself in the Boer War, and his fate shadows the family's sense of its own permanence.
Annette Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Annette, French, Annette French, Annette Soames
Annette enters the Forsyte world as Soames's answer to the ruin of his first marriage, a Parisian beauty whose foreignness both adorns and unsettles the family's rigid respectability. She gives Soames the daughter he never expected, and in doing so quietly reopens questions about what he actually wanted from a wife. Her presence in the saga measures how much of Soames's life is possession and how little of it is love, and her daughter will carry that inheritance forward.
Timothy Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Timothy, Mr. Timothy, Uncle Timothy, old Timothy, Timothy Forsyte, Poor Mr. Timothy
Timothy presides over the family's most static household, where Aunt Ann sits reading and knitting beneath a plume of dyed pampas grass and no Forsyte is permitted to die. His horror of death and change makes him the purest embodiment of the family's instinct to take precautions against encroachments on its property, including mortality itself. As the older generation thins around him, his stubborn survival becomes the saga's quiet joke about what the Forsytes are really made of.
Juley Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Juley, Aunt Juley, Aunts Juley
Juley lives out her days in Timothy's household, where the family's engagements, marriages, and births are received as events and its scandals are absorbed through tea-table talk. Her softness and appetite for other people's business make her both a comfort and a conduit, the sort of aunt through whom the Forsytes learn what they are supposed to think. She matters because the saga's social texture lives in rooms like hers, where the family's formidable tenacity is knitted stitch by stitch.
Hester Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Hester, Aunt Hester, dear Hester, Miss Hester
Hester shares the sheltered, unchanging household of Timothy and Juley, where the days pass among effigies and knitting and the family's rituals of attendance. Where Juley chatters, Hester absorbs, and her restraint gives the Forsyte drawing-room its undertone of things felt but not spoken. She is part of the chorus of aunts whose collective weight defines what respectability costs, and whose long lives measure how slowly this family lets anything change.
Swithin Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Swithin, Uncle Swithin, Poor old Uncle Swithin, Swithin Forsyte, the bulky Swithin, old Swithin
Swithin belongs to the older generation of Forsytes, a bachelor of large appetites and larger self-regard who holds forth at Timothy's on the rumour about Irene. He waves away any suggestion of scandal with the conviction that the family's position is beyond reproach, yet privately hugs the hope that somewhere in their line there is something distinguished. His vanity and his anxious need for respectability make him a comic but telling emblem of the clan's self-satisfaction.
Roger Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Roger, Uncle Roger, Roger Forsyte, young Roger, poor Roger
Roger is one of the older Forsyte brothers, remembered for his practical sharpness and his odd convictions about digestion. His funeral at Highgate draws the family together and sends Soames to Timothy's, where the aunts wait to hear the details. In death as in life he serves as a hinge: his passing exposes the family's rituals of propriety, its appetite for advantage, and the quiet unease beneath its surface.
Nicholas Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Nicholas, Uncle Nicholas, young Nicholas, Nick, Nicholas Forsyte, Mrs. Nicholas Forsyte
Nicholas stands among the older Forsyte brothers, a prosperous paterfamilias whose numerous offspring thicken the family tree. He belongs to the generation that has done well for itself and takes that success as proof of worth, part of the clan's formidable tenacity. His presence at family gatherings, including Roger's funeral, helps establish the dense, self-regarding world the younger Forsytes must navigate.
Emily Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Emily, Mrs. James, Mrs. James Forsyte
Emily is married to James Forsyte and mother to Soames, a woman of the older generation who keeps the domestic machinery running and the proprieties observed. She belongs to the family's solid, respectable core, and her influence is felt in the way her son moves through the world. In the early arc she helps define the household Soames comes from and the expectations that press upon him.
Aunt Ann Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Aunt Ann, Ann, Anna, Miss Ann Forsyte
Aunt Ann is the senior aunt, seldom leaving her corner of Timothy's green drawing-room, where she sits reading and knitting among the effigies of three generations. Her dignity and her immovable presence embody the family idea itself, the tenacity that holds the Forsytes together. When she is gone, the family begins coming more often to The Bower, and her absence quietly shifts the clan's centre of gravity.
Michael Mont
supporting
Also known as Michael Mont, Mont, Mr. Michael Mont, Mr. Mont, young Mont, Michael
Michael Mont enters the saga as a young man of title and progressive instincts, drawn into the family through his marriage to Fleur. He is generous, curious, and a little unmoored, his modern outlook rubbing against the older Forsytes' settled habits. His presence in the later arc tests whether the clan's possessive instincts can accommodate a temperament that wants something more than property and propriety.
Prosper Profond
supporting
Also known as Profond, Monsieur Profond, Prosper Profond, Monsieur Prosper Profond
Profond moves through the Forsyte circle as a guest of Annette's French connections, a man of vague origins and vaguer morals who treats English respectability as an amusing spectacle. His languid cynicism and appetite for pleasure make him a quiet threat to the family's carefully guarded proprieties, especially where younger wives grow restless. He matters because he embodies the outside world pressing in on the Forsytes' insular code, and because his casual predations expose how thin that code really is.
George Forsyte
supporting
Also known as George, George Forsyte, Old George Forsyte, old George, Mr. George Forsyde
George belongs to the younger generation of Forsytes, a man about town who keeps his distance from the family's pious self-regard while never quite renouncing his share of it. His mockery is his defense and his pleasure, aimed at everyone from Soames's possessiveness to the general Forsyte instinct for acquisition. He matters because his ironic commentary gives readers a knowing eye inside the tribe, exposing the comedy beneath the property drama without ever letting himself be caught caring.
Francie Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Francie, Miss Francie Forsyte, Miss Forsyte, Francie Forsyte, Frances, Fanny, Little Francie
Francie occupies an awkward place in the clan, drawn to beauty and feeling in a family that measures everything in pounds and possessions. Her bohemian leanings and romantic sympathies set her at odds with the Forsyte instinct for safety and appearance, making her a quiet dissenter at gatherings where conformity is the price of belonging. She matters because she shows that the family's grip is not total, and that some Forsytes would rather be interesting than secure.
Euphemia Forsyte
supporting
Also known as Euphemia, Euphemia Forsyte
Euphemia moves through Forsyte drawing-rooms with the confidence of a daughter who has nothing to prove and everything to observe. Her tongue is her weapon, and she uses it on courtships, marriages, and the small hypocrisies that keep the family machine running smoothly. She matters because her running commentary turns the saga's social rituals into something legible and faintly absurd, giving readers a companion in their own amusement.
Imogen Cardigan
supporting
Also known as Imogen, Imogen Thisbe, the inexorable Imogen, Imogen Cardigan
Imogen belongs to the newest generation of Forsytes, raised in comfort and expected to convert her looks and connections into a suitable match. She is flirtatious, self-aware, and not above playing the game she was born into, though her heart is not always consulted in the arrangements made around her. She matters because her courtship and eventual marriage show how the family's property instinct extends into its daughters' futures, and how little say those daughters are given in the transaction.
Smither
minor
Also known as Smither, All this Smither
The Forsyte family maid, a loyal and long-serving servant.
Old Gradman
minor
Also known as Old Gradman, Gradman, old Gradman, Thomas Gradman, the said Thomas Gradman
Soames's faithful and elderly clerk, a keeper of family secrets.
Polteed
minor
Also known as Polteed, Mr. Claud Polteed, Mr. Polteed
A private detective hired by Soames to watch Irene.
Mrs. Macander
minor
Also known as Mrs. Macander, Mrs. MacAnder, Dear Mrs. MacAnder, dear little Mrs. MacAnder
A friend of Irene's who gives evidence in the divorce case.
Balthasar
minor
Also known as Balthasar, the Dog Balthasar Jolyon
Old Jolyon's devoted dog, a constant companion in his later years.
Madame Lamotte
minor
Also known as Madame Lamotte, Madame, Lamotte
Annette's mother, a Frenchwoman who runs a restaurant in Soho.
Mademoiselle Beauce
minor
Also known as Mademoiselle Beauce, Mademoiselle, Mam'zelle Beauce, Beauce, Mam'zelle
Fleur's French governess, a strict and cultured woman.
Boris Strumolowski
minor
Also known as Boris Strumolowski, Boris, Strumolowski, young Strumolowski, Young Strumolowski
A young Polish composer and friend of June's artistic circle.
Eric Cobbley
minor
Also known as Eric Cobbley
A struggling artist supported by June, part of her bohemian set.
Dreamer Q.C.
minor
Also known as Dreamer, Dreamer Q.C., Mr. Dreamer
A barrister involved in the Forsyte legal affairs.
Tweetyman
minor
Also known as Tweetyman, Marian Tweetyman
A friend of the Forsyte family, mentioned in social contexts.
Septimus Small
minor
Also known as Septimus Small, Mrs. Small, Mrs. Septimus Small, Small
The husband of Aunt Juley, a minor and often-absent figure.
Warmston
minor
Also known as Warmston, the withdrawing Warmson
Soames's butler, a discreet and efficient servant.
Bilson
minor
Also known as Bilson, The maid Bilson
A maid in Soames's household, often in the background.
Jack Cardigan
minor
Also known as Jack Cardigan, Jack
Imogen's husband, a military man with a hearty manner.
Cook
minor
Also known as Cook, Secretly Cook
The Forsyte family cook, a skilled and valued servant.
Mr. Bellby
minor
Also known as Mr. Bellby, Bellby
Soames's solicitor, a legal advisor in family matters.
Mr. Justice Bentham
minor
Also known as Mr. Justice Bentham, Bentham
The judge presiding over the Bosinney trial.
Waterbuck
minor
Also known as Waterbuck
A friend of Montague Dartie, part of his racing set.
Bustard
minor
Also known as Bustard
Another friend of Montague Dartie, a man about town.
Susan Hayman
minor
Also known as Susan, Susan Hayman, Hayman, dear Susan
A Forsyte cousin, married into the Hayman family.
Jesse Hayman
minor
Also known as Jesse, Jessie, Jesse Hayman
A member of the Hayman family, related to the Forsytes.
Giles Hayman
minor
Also known as Giles, Giles Hayman
Another Hayman relative, part of the extended family circle.
Nicholas Treffry
minor
Also known as Nicholas Treffry, Treffry, Dear old Nick, The notorious Treffry, Nicholas, Nick
An old friend of the Forsyte family, a man of dubious reputation.
Mr. Baynes
minor
Also known as Mr. Baynes, Baynes, Mrs. Baynes
An architect and colleague of Bosinney's.
Young Chankery
minor
Also known as young Chankery, Chankery, Young Chankery
A young man about town, part of the Dartie social circle.
Paul Post
minor
Also known as Paul, Paul Post, Mr. Paul Post
An artist friend of June's, part of her bohemian circle.
Augustus Flippard
minor
Also known as young Flippard, Augustus Flippard, young Augustus Flippard, Flippard, Augustus
A young man in the Dartie set, a friend of Val's.
Jack Herring
minor
Also known as Jack Herring, Herring, young Herring
A friend of Val's, part of the horse-racing crowd.
Mr. Gathercole
minor
Also known as Mr. Gathercole, Gathercole
A solicitor involved in the family's legal business.
Jobson
minor
Also known as Jobson
A servant or tradesman mentioned in the household.
Parkes
minor
Also known as Parkes
A servant in the Forsyte household.
Adolf
minor
Also known as Adolf
A servant at the Forsyte family home.
Bella
minor
Also known as Bella
A maid or servant in the Forsyte household.
Maud
minor
Also known as Maud, Tilly
A servant or minor character in the household.
Boulter
minor
Also known as Boulter
A servant or tradesman mentioned in passing.
Bodkin
minor
Also known as Bodkin
A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.
Crum Stone
minor
Also known as Crum Stone, Crum, Damn Crum
A friend of Val's, part of the younger set.
Tom Brown
minor
Also known as Tom Brown, Brown
A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.
Dumetrius
minor
Also known as Dumetrius
A dealer or acquaintance in the art world.
Eustace
minor
Also known as Eustace, Eustace , who had never smiled
A minor Forsyte relative, known for his solemnity.
Cicely
minor
Also known as Cicely
A minor female character, possibly a friend or relative.
Rachel Forsyte
minor
Also known as Rachel, Rachel Forsyte
A Forsyte cousin, daughter of one of the uncles.
Julia
minor
Also known as Julia, Mrs. Julia
A minor female character, possibly a friend or relative.
Archibald
minor
Also known as Archibald, Archie
A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.
Pippin
minor
Also known as Pippin
A minor character, possibly a child or servant.
Fred
minor
Also known as Fred
A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.
Hannah Hobdey
minor
Also known as Hannah Hobdey
A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.
Mary Lambe
minor
Also known as Mary Lambe
A minor character, possibly a friend or relative.
Cynthia Dark
minor
Also known as Cynthia Dark, Cynthia
A minor character, possibly a friend of the family.
Lady Baynes
minor
Also known as Lady Baynes, Baynes
The wife of Mr. Baynes, an architect's wife.
The Rev. Thomas Scole
minor
Also known as the Rev. Thomas Scoles, Tommy, Tom, Scoles, Mr. Scole
A clergyman who marries some of the Forsyte family.
Little Mr. Booker
minor
Also known as little Mr. Booker, Little Mr. Booker
A minor character, possibly a tradesman or acquaintance.
The Rev. Mr. Boms
minor
Also known as the Rev. Mr. Boms, The Rev. Mr. Boms
A clergyman mentioned in the family's social circle.
Sir Lamorac de Galis
minor
Also known as Sir Lamorac de Galis, Sir Lamorac
A minor character, possibly a friend or acquaintance.
