Forster, E. M.

Forster, E. M. ( Edward Morgan Forster) (1879–1970), educated at Tonbridge School (which he disliked) and King's College, Cambridge, where the atmosphere of free intellectual discussion and a stress on the importance of personal relationships inspired partly by G. E. Moore was to have a profound influence on his work. In 1901 he was elected to the Apostles. A year of travel in Italy with his mother and a cruise to Greece followed, providing material for his early novels, which satirize the attitude of English tourists abroad. On his return he wrote for the Independent Review, launched in 1903 by a group of Cambridge friends, led by G. M. Trevelyan; in 1904 it published his first story, ‘The Story of a Panic’. In 1905 he published Where Angels Fear to Tread, and spent some months in Germany as tutor to the children of the Countess von Arnim. In 1906 he became tutor to Syed Ross Masood, a striking and colourful Indian Muslim patriot. He then published The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and Howards End (1910). The Celestial Omnibus (1911) was a collection of short stories. In 1912–13 he visited India and travelled with Masood. In 1913 a significant visit to the home of E. Carpenter resulted in his writing Maurice, a novel with a homosexual theme which he circulated privately; it was published posthumously in 1971. He went to Alexandria in 1915 for the Red Cross; his Alexandria: A History and a Guide was published in 1922. In Alexandria he met Constantine Cavafy, whose works he helped to introduce; an essay on Cavafy appears in Pharos and Pharillon (1923). In 1921–2 he revisited India, and worked as personal secretary for the maharajah of the native state of Dewas Senior. A Passage to India (1922–4), which he had begun before the war, was his last novel. The remainder of his life was devoted to a wide range of literary activities; he took a firm stand against censorship, involving himself in the work of PEN and the NCCL, campaigning in 1928 against the suppression of R. Hall's The Well of Loneliness, and appearing in 1960 as witness for the defence in the trial of the publishers of Lady Chatterley's Lover. In 1927 he delivered the Clark lectures at Cambridge, printed as Aspects of the Novel (1927). King's College offered him in 1946 an honorary fellowship and a permanent home. Forster's other publications include The Eternal Moment (1928), a volume of pre-1914 short stories; two biographies, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1934) and Marianne Thornton (1956); Abinger Harvest (1936), essays; Two Cheers for Democracy (1951), essays; and The Hill of Devi (1953), a portrait of India. He worked with Eric Crozier on the libretto for Britten's opera Billy Budd (1951). Maurice was followed by another posthumous publication, The Life to Come (1972), a collection of short stories, many with homosexual themes.