Drama & Literature (novelist) – E.M. Forster Archives - CORRIDORS│An Educational Website in the Arts and History. Featuring My Photography and Videos.

FEATURE image: E.M. Forster. Public Domain. Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879. He wrote numerous short stories, essays, biographies and plays, although he is best known for his novels, particularly A Room With A View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924), all of which have been made into award-winning feature films. Forster was nominated for a score of Nobel Prizes for Literature. He died in 1970.

*E. M. Forster* by Dora Carrington (1893-1932), oil on canvas, 1920. Public Domain.

Title page, first edition, 1908. Public Domain.

Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970) is an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

The heart of Forster’s literary work is humanist in nature as his characters depict—whether in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), A Room with a View (1908), his masterpiece Howards End (1910), his most successful work A Passage to India (1924), Maurice (1971), and others — the honest pursuit of personal tracks and connections in the face of first looking to impress or please the inevitable and constantly mutating restrictions of contemporary society.

In A Room With a View it is 1907 and young English girl Lucy Honeychurch — “a young lady with a quantity of dark hair and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face”– is staying at an Italian pension with her cousin and chaperone, Miss Charlotte Bartlett while on holiday in and around Florence.

At dinner in the pension they meet some other English guests: a reverend, two older Miss Alans, a writer Miss Lavish, and a Mr. Emerson and his handsome adult son, George. They discuss the merits and practicalities of having a room with a view in Florence.

The next day while touring the city Lucy faints in the Piazza della Signoria having witnessed a stabbing and is rescued by handsome George. After they establish this connection George and Lucy are together again to join a group tour of the nearby countryside. Eventually finding themselves alone, George embraces Lucy and they kiss. This is witnessed by Miss Bartlett who cuts short her and Lucy’s visit to Florence.

After visiting the Vyses in Rome, Lucy and Miss Bartlett have returned to Surrey in England. Lucy accepts one of the marriage proposals from snobby Cecil Vyse, a drawing room match. By happenstance of personal connection, George and his father, Mr. Emerson, had made passing acquaintance with Cecil at the National Gallery in London which led to Cecil inviting them to take up residence in a rental house next door to Lucy Honeychurch. Lucy immediately recalls the Emersons and their personal connection in Florence, especially with George. But her escape to Rome and then to Windy Corner, her home in Surrey, added to her being uncomfortable with their renewed intimate presence, particularly since she is just engaged to Cecil, her “Fiasco” as Lucy’s brother Freddy calls him.

Lucy rebuffs George as she ultimately breaks her engagement with Cecil with plans for herself to travel to Greece. Meantime, George has made plans of his own to leave. At this juncture, Lucy admits her feelings for George and cancels her trip. George and Lucy elope to Florence. They take “a room with the view” with the promise of living happily thereafter. Forster observed: “Passion does not blind. No. Passion is sanity, and the woman you love, she is the only person you will ever really understand.”