Black Lamb

A Week in Literary History

January 1st, 2002

English novelist E.M. Forster (A Passage to India, 1924) is born in London in 1879.

Edward Morgan Forster, b. January 1, 1879, d. 1988

Although he was born in the time of Victoria and lived into the Georgian and Elizabethan years, E.M. Forster remained all his life an Edwardian. His first five novels — the ones he published during his lifetime — reflect the odd mix of values and habits of those strange years in England between the death of the old Queen and the financial crises of the Thirties. The Tory attachment to land and property figures strongly, and the sexual liberation of the time is expressed gingerly and discreetly, just this side of repression. Even in the openly homosexual Maurice, unpublished during his lifetime and therefore potentially less restrained, Forster shows a fascinating Englishness, well-mannered yet rebellious, boringly well-balanced yet close to hysteria. By all accounts, Forster’s writing is a great deal more interesting than he was personally. There’s no hint of the limp or wet; his books are forthright, sharp, and enlivened by humor. And in his last two, he expanded his canvas to embrace entire socio-economic societies. Forster had the good sense to stop writing novels at the top of his game. In any case, it would have been difficult to surpass A Passage to India.

Suggested Reading Novels 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, 1971. Stories The Celestial Omnibus, 1911. The Eternal Moment, 1928. The Collected Tales, 1947. Non-fiction Alexandria: A History and Guide, 1922. Aspects of the Novel, 1927. Abinger Harvest, 1940. The Hill of Devi, 1953.

Posted by: The Editors
Category: Books and Authors, A Week in Literary History | Link to this Entry