“The Dark Flower” has a universal theme - the positive powers and the disruptive effects of sexuality and desire. It is the story of Mark Lennan and his infatuation, adulterous affair, conventional marriage and obsession for a younger woman. Despite the moral debate Galsworthy’s novel has enormous narrative strength which sweeps the listener along from start to finish.

John Galsworthy (1867 – 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932. He was born at Kingston Hill in Surrey, England into an established wealthy family. He trained as a barrister, however he was not keen and instead travelled abroad to look after the family's shipping business interests. During these travels he met Joseph Conrad, then the first mate of a sailing-ship moored in the harbour of Adelaide, Australia, and the two future novelists became close friends. It was as a playwright he was mainly appreciated at the time, He is now far better known for his novels and particularly The Forsyte Saga, the first of three trilogies of novels about the eponymous family and connected lives. These books, as with many of his other works, dealt with class, and in particular upper-middle class lives. He is viewed as one of the first writers of the Edwardian era; challenging in his works some of the ideals of society depicted in the proceeding literature of Victorian England.