Edward Morgan Forster,
OM (
January 1,
1879 –
June 7,
1970), was an
English novelist,
short story writer, and
essayist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early
20th-century British society. Forster's
humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the
epigraph to his 1910 novel
Howards End: "Only connect."
Forster was
homosexual, but this fact was not made public during his lifetime. His posthumously released novel
Maurice, never intended for publication, tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.
Early years Forster stopped writing novels at the age of 45, and produced little more fiction apart from short stories intended only for himself and a small circle of friends.
In the 1930s and 1940s Forster became a successful broadcaster on
BBC Radio and a public figure associated with the
British Humanist Association. He was awarded a
Benson Medal in
1937.
Forster had a happy personal relationship, beginning in the early 1930s, with Bob Buckingham, a constable in the
London Metropolitan Police. He developed a friendship with Buckingham's wife May and included the couple in his circle, which also included the writer and editor of
The Listener J.R. Ackerley, the psychologist W.J.H. Sprott, and, for a time, the composer
Benjamin Britten. Other writers with whom Forster associated included the poet
Siegfried Sassoon and the
Belfast-based novelist
Forrest Reid.
After the death of his mother, Forster accepted an honorary fellowship at
King's College, Cambridge and lived for the most part in the college, doing relatively little. In 1969 he was made a member of the
Order of Merit. Forster died in
Coventry the following year at the age of 91, at the home of the Buckinghams.
After A Passage to India Forster had five novels published in his lifetime. Although
Maurice appeared shortly after his death, it had been written nearly sixty years earlier. A seventh novel,
Arctic Summer, was never finished.
His first novel,
Where Angels Fear to Tread (
1905), is the story of Lilia, a young English widow who falls in love with an
Italian, and of the efforts of her bourgeois relatives to get her back from
Monteriano (based on
San Gimignano). The mission of Philip Herriton to retrieve her from Italy has features in common with that of
Lambert Strether in
Henry James's
The Ambassadors, a work Forster discussed ironically and somewhat disapprovingly in his book
Aspects of the Novel (1927).
Where Angels Fear to Tread was adapted into a film by
Charles Sturridge in
1991.
Next, Forster published
The Longest Journey (
1907), an inverted
bildungsroman following the lame Rickie Elliott from Cambridge to a career as a struggling writer and then to a post as a schoolmaster, married to the unappetising Agnes Pembroke. In a series of scenes on the hills of Wiltshire which introduce Rickie's wild half-brother Stephen Wonham, Forster attempts a kind of
sublime related to those of
Thomas Hardy and
D.H. Lawrence.
Forster's third novel,
A Room with a View (
1908) is his lightest and most optimistic. It was started before any of his others, as early as 1901, and exists in earlier forms referred to as "Lucy." The book is the story of young Lucy Honeychurch's trip to Italy with her cousin, and the choice she must make between the free-thinking George Emerson and the repressed aesthete Cecil Vyse. George's father Mr. Emerson quotes thinkers who influenced Forster, including
Samuel Butler.
A Room with a View was filmed by
Merchant-Ivory in 1987.
Where Angels Fear to Tread and
A Room with a View can be seen collectively as Forster's Italian novels. Both include references to the famous
Baedeker guidebooks and concern narrow-minded middle-class English tourists abroad. The books share many themes with short stories collected in
The Celestial Omnibus and
The Eternal Moment.
Howards End (
1910) is an ambitious "condition-of-England" novel concerned with different groups within the
Edwardian middle classes represented by the Schlegels (bohemian intellectuals), the Wilcoxes (thoughtless plutocrats) and the Basts (struggling lower-middle-class aspirants).
It is frequently observed that characters in Forster's
novels die suddenly. This is true of
Where Angels Fear to Tread,
Howards End and, most particularly,
The Longest Journey.
Forster achieved his greatest success with
A Passage to India (
1924). The
novel takes as its subject the relationship between
East and
West, seen through the lens of
India in the later days of the
British Raj. Forster connects personal relationships with the politics of
colonialism through the story of the Englishwoman Adela Quested, the Indian Dr. Aziz, and the question of what did or did not happen between them in the Marabar Caves.
Maurice (
1971) was published after the novelist's death. It is a
homosexual love story which also returns to matters familiar from Forster's first three novels, such as the
suburbs of London in the English
home counties, the experience of attending
Cambridge, and the wild landscape of
Wiltshire. The novel was controversial, given that Forster's sexuality had not been previously known or widely acknowledged. Today's critics continue to argue over the authorship of
Maurice and the extent to which Forster's sexuality, even his alleged personal activities, influenced his writing.
Novels Forster's views as a
secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. His humanist attitude is expressed in the non-fictional essay
What I Believe.
Forster's two best-known works,
A Passage to India and
Howards End, explore the irreconcilability of class differences. Although considered by some to have less serious literary weight,
A Room with a View also shows how questions of propriety and class can make connection difficult. The novel is his most widely read and accessible work, remaining popular long after its original publication. His posthumous novel
Maurice explores the possibility of class reconciliation as one facet of a homosexual relationship.
Sexuality is another key theme in Forster's works, and it has been argued that a general shift from
heterosexual love to
homosexual love can be detected over the course of his writing career. The foreword to
Maurice describes his struggle with his own homosexuality, while similar issues are explored in several volumes of homosexually charged short stories. Forster's explicitly homosexual writings, the novel
Maurice and the short-story collection
The Life to Come, were published shortly after his death.
Forster is noted for his use of
symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised (as by his friend
Roger Fry) for his attachment to
mysticism. One example of his symbolism is the
Wych Elm tree in
Howards End; the characters of Mrs Wilcox in that novel and Mrs Moore in
A Passage to India have a mystical link with the past and a striking ability to connect with people from beyond their own circles.
Key themes Notes Notable works by Forster Where Angels Fear to Tread 1905;
The Longest Journey 1907;
A Room with a View 1908;
Howards End 1910;
A Passage to India 1924;
Maurice (supposedly written in
1913-
1914, published posthumously in
1971, attributed to Forster);
Arctic Summer 1980 (posthumous, unfinished)
Novels The Celestial Omnibus (and other stories) 1911 ·
The Eternal Moment and other stories 1928 ·
Collected Short Stories (1947) (- a combination of the above two titles, containing: "The Story of A Panic" · "
The Other Side Of The Hedge" · "The Celestial Omnibus" · "Other Kingdom" · "The Curate's Friend" · "The Road From Colonus" · "
The Machine Stops" · "The Point Of It" · "Mr Andrews" · "Co-ordination" · "The Story Of The Siren" · "The Eternal Moment" ·
The Life to Come and other stories 1972 (posthumous) (containing the following stories written between approximately
1903 and
1960: "Ansell" · "Albergo Empedocle" · "The Purple Envelope" · "The Helping Hand" · "The Rock" · "
The Life to Come" · "Dr Woolacott" · "Arthur Snatchfold" · "The Obelisk" · "What Does It Matter? A Morality" · "
The Classical Annex" · "The Torque" · "
The Other Boat" · "Three Courses and a Dessert: Being a New and Gastronomic Version of the Old Game of Consequences") · "My Wood"
Short stories Abinger Pageant 1934 ·
England's Pleasant Land 1940 Plays and Pageants A Diary for Timothy 1945 (directed by
Humphrey Jennings, spoken by
Michael Redgrave)
Film Scripts Billy Budd 1951 (based on
Melville's novel, for the opera by
Britten)
Libretto Abinger Harvest 1936 ·
Two Cheers for Democracy 1951 Collections of essays and broadcasts Aspects of the Novel 1927 ·
The Feminine Note in Literature (posthumous) 2001 Biography Alexandria: A History and Guide 1922 ·
Pharos and Pharillon (A Novelist's Sketchbook of Alexandria Through the Ages) 1923 ·
The Hill of Devi 1953 Travel writing Selected Letters 1983-
1985 ·
Commonplace Book 1985 ·
Locked Diary forthcoming
2007 (held at
King's College, Cambridge)
Notable films based upon novels by Forster Abrams, M.H. and Stephen Greenblatt, "E.M. Forster."
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2C., 7th Edition. New York:
W.W. Norton, 2000: 2131-2140.
Ackerley, J. R.,
E. M. Forster: A Portrait (Ian McKelvie, London, 1970)
Bakshi, Parminder Kaur,
Distant Desire. Homoerotic Codes and the Subversion of the English Novel in E. M. Forster's Fiction (New York, 1996).
Beauman, Nicola,
Morgan (London, 1993).
Brander, Lauwrence,
E.M. Forster. A critical study (London, 1968).
Cavaliero, Glen,
A Reading of E.M. Forster (London, 1979).
Colmer, John,
E.M. Forster - The personal voice (London, 1975).
E.M. Forster, ed. by Norman Page, Macmillan Modern Novelists (Houndmills, 1987).
E.M. Forster: The critical heritage, ed. by Philip Gardner (London, 1973).
Forster: A collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Malcolm Bradbury (New Jersey, 1966).
Furbank, P.N.,
E.M. Forster: A Life (London, 1977-1978).
Haag, Michael,
Alexandria: City of Memory (London and New Haven, 2004). This portrait of Alexandria during the first half of the twentieth century includes a biographical account of E.M. Forster, his life in the city, his relationship with
Constantine Cavafy, and his influence on
Lawrence Durrell.
King, Francis,
E.M. Forster and his World, (London, 1978).
Martin, John Sayre,
E.M. Forster. The endless journey (London, 1976).
Martin, Robert K. and George Piggford eds.,
Queer Forster (Chicago, 1997)
Mishra, Pankaj (ed.). "E.M. Forster."
India in Mind: An Anthology. New York: Vintage Books, 2005: 61-70.
Scott, P.J.M.,
E.M. Forster: Our Permanent Contemporary, Critical Studies Series (London, 1984).
Summers, Claude J.,
E.M. Forster (New York, 1983).
Trilling, Lionel,
E. M. Forster: A Study (Norfolk: New Directions, 1943).
Wilde, Alan,
Art and Order. A Study of E.M. Forster (New York, 1967).
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