Peter Hovenden Longley

Forsythia: a Memoir of Lost Generations Peter Hovenden Longley

Encased within the drama of John Galsworthy's 'The Forsyte Saga,' Peter Hovenden Longley weaves an autobiographical reminiscence of his own English family from the 1880s to the 1960s. Brought up in the last days of 'Forsythia', a world of the 3 percent born in privilege to serve the British Empire, Longley celebrates his family's lost generations. Nothing--neither the abdication of the king and emperor, Edward VIII, in 1936, nor Adolf Hitler's relentless bombs--could shake the British people's conviction that theirs was the eternal kingdom. Doggedly, they believed that after a good cup of strong, Indian tea, and a game of croquet on the lawn, 'Forsythia' would go on forever. Forced to accept that the world they once loved was changing around them, Longley's family and their peers struggled to adapt to a new reality.
With the permission of the Galsworthy estate, Longley analyzes 'The Forsyte Saga' and reflects on the impact of this work of literature. His was the last generation of 'Forsytes', witnesses to those final rays that filtered across the empire on which they all thought the sun would never set.