9 h 0 minAudiobook6 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 9 h 0 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 221 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 221 pagesAbout this book
What happens when a family fears scandal more than the harm its rules can cause?
At Worsted Skeynes, Horace Pendyce treats land, church and village as parts of one settled order. His family’s name belongs to that order too. In John Galsworthy’s The Country House, the quiet routines of rural English gentry come under strain when private feeling refuses to stay within the bounds of rank and good manners.
George Pendyce, the restless heir, becomes entangled with Helen Bellew, a woman unhappy in her marriage. His mother, Margery, responds with a tenderness her husband’s rigid outlook leaves little room for. As the family guards its reputation, Galsworthy asks what respectability protects—and whose feelings it requires people to set aside.
What you’ll discover
- An estate’s settled order Enter Worsted Skeynes, where land and custom shape what a family expects from its own.
- A mother’s gentler view Meet Margery, whose concern for her son brings tenderness into a household governed by rank.
- An heir under pressure Follow George as his bond with Helen strains the role his family sets for him.
- The uses of silence See how manners, property and discretion help a respectable family defend its place.
- A cool, fair eye Explore Galsworthy’s measured study of class, where personal feeling tests the limits of social rules.
Who will love it
For readers who enjoy English country life, family drama and quiet irony in the manner of the Victorian novel. It suits anyone curious about squires, rectors, racing and the law of marriage in the 1890s.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A shooting party gathers at Worsted Skeynes
- A horse wins and a kiss is seen
- A divorce becomes a plan
- The rector opposes the divorce
- A letter from Bellew shakes the estate
- Council of men and the cost of a lost race
- The rector's anxious day and the squire's resolve
- A mother goes to London
- The mother meets her rival and the squire sits alone
Who’s who
- Horace PendyceThe squire of Worsted Skeynes, who loves his estate and its traditions above all and cannot bear scandal or change.
- Margery PendyceHis gentle wife, born a Totteridge, who rarely asks for anything but will act boldly to stand by her son.
- George PendyceThe heir, a racing man and a man of his club, who is deeply in love with a married woman and hides his feelings behind a mask.
- Helen BellewA striking, restless woman living apart from her husband, who attracts men easily and wants life to be exciting.
- Jaspar BellewHer pale, hard-drinking husband, a reckless rider with burning eyes, who strikes back by naming George in a divorce suit.
- Gregory VigilMargery's idealist cousin and Helen's guardian, who works for a rescue society and wants to free her from her marriage.
- Hussell BarterThe rector of Worsted Skeynes, loud and sure of his duty, who has seen what he calls immorality and means to stop it.
- Edmund ParamorA dry, kind solicitor who loves roses and poetry and warns everyone to keep the matter out of court.
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The Country House
by John Galsworthy · 1907
A squire guards his acres, his son loves a married woman, and one letter from Jaspar Bellew shakes Worsted Skeynes.
Medium level5–10 hours to readEspañol
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In short
A squire loves his estate more than his own feelings, and his son loves the wrong woman. That is the spark in The Country House, John Galsworthy's gentle, ironic novel of English country life in the early 1890s.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A shooting party gathers at Worsted Skeynes
The story opens in October 1891 at the little railway station near Worsted Skeynes. Servants wait for the guests of Horace Pendyce. Among them is Mrs. Bellew, who rides beside George, the squire's eldest son. The coachman admits that she and her husband are no longer together.
At dinner the squire is drawn with great care. Horace Pendyce calls himself a Tory Communist, loses money running his estate on model lines, and likes to talk about himself. His wife Margery sits at the far end with her gentle, expectant look.
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A squire guards his acres, his son loves a married woman, and one letter from Jaspar Bellew shakes Worsted Skeynes.
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Details
- First published
- 1907
- Language
- Español
- Level
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- Paperback
- 221 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Hardcover
- 221 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print paperback
- 333 pages · 8.5 × 11 in
- Large print hardcover
- 333 pages · 8.5 × 11 in
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What is The Country House by John Galsworthy about?
It is about the Pendyce family of Worsted Skeynes, an English country estate, and what happens when the heir George falls in love with a married woman and her husband begins a divorce suit that threatens the family name.
Who is Mr. Pendyce and what does Pendycitis mean?
Horace Pendyce is the squire of Worsted Skeynes. The solicitor Paramor jokingly uses the word Pendycitis for a narrow, stubborn instinct that turns problems into needless suffering and makes people cling to habit and precedent.
When is The Country House set and when was it written?
The story is set in 1891 and 1892 in the English countryside and in London, and it was published in 1907. It is fiction, though its details of divorce law, clubs and country life reflect real customs of the time.
The author
John Galsworthy
1867–1933 · English novelist and playwright
John Galsworthy was an English novelist and playwright born in Surrey in 1867. He lived in England and died in London in 1933. He wrote The Country House, published in 1907, and the play Justice, first performed in 1910. The Forsyte Saga appeared as a collected volume in 1922.
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