Galsworthy's first novel was also the one he came to define as his most important, and it set the template in style and content for all his subsequent work. Galsworthy wrote the novel as a wide-ranged traveller returned home, prepared to confront the entrenched and self-serving moneyed elite. The pharisaical egoism of England's ruling class (with which he was familiar, as a member) remained his focus throughout most of his work. Told through the eyes of Richard Shelton, who can feel at home netiher among his natural privileged class nor the poor of his acquaintance, this is a compelling satire on the hypocrisy of the upper classes and the narrow-mindedness of the English abroad, The Island Pharisees is a brave and important novel by one of the leading British writers of the twentieth century.