The Man of Property vs The Newcomes: Which Should You Read?

The Man of Property John Galsworthy · 1906 ★★★★☆ 4.0 350 pages · ≈ 6 h 29 m · Challenging

The first book of the Forsyte Saga, initially published in 1906 (the second was not published until 1921). Here the reader is introduced to the large Forsyte clan, with special attention paid to the rapacious Soames…

The Newcomes William Makepeace Thackeray · 1853 ★★★★☆ 3.7 801 pages · ≈ 14 h 50 m · Demanding

“A CROW, who had flown away with a cheese from a diary window, sate perched on a tree looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath him.”

The Newcomes is Thackeray's most essentially 'Victorian' novel, generous in its proportions, sharp in its criticism of the moral convolutions of the age, and encyclopaedic in its reference. Set in the 1830s and 1840s, a…