Aspects of the Novel

Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879. He attended Tonbridge School and went on to King’s College, Cambridge, in 1897, with which he maintained a lifelong connection, being elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 1946.

Forster declared his life as a whole had not been dramatic and was unfailingly modest about his achievements. In an interview on his eightieth birthday, he stated, “I have not written as much as I’d like to… I write for two reasons- partly to make money and partly to win the respect of people whom I respect… I had better add that I am quite sure I am not a great novelist.” Eminent critics and the general public have judged otherwise, and in his obituary, The Times called him “one of the most esteemed English novelists of his time.”

He wrote six novels:

• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
• The Longest Journey (1907)
• A Room with a View (1908)
• Howard’s End (1910)
• A Passage to India (published fourteen years after Howard’s End, winning both the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize)
• Maurice (a novel on a homosexual theme, finished in 1914, published posthumously in 1971)

In addition to his novels, Forster published:

• Two volumes of short stories
• Two collections of essays
• A critical work, Aspects of the Novel
• The Hill of Devi, a record of two visits to the Indian State of Dewas Senior
• Two biographies
• Two books about Alexandria, where he worked for the Red Cross during the First World War
• The libretto for Britten’s opera Billy Budd, with Eric Crozier

Edward Morgan Forster died in June 1970.