Howards End - Softcover

Forster, E. M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1499248083 ISBN 13: 9781499248081

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

“Only connect...”

Considered by many to be E. M. Forster’s greatest novel, ‘Howards End,’ is a beautifully woven tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event.

The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature.

The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of "telegrams and anger.”

When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home—Howards End—to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve.

Symbolically, the house brings together three important elements in English society: money and power in the Wilcoxes, culture in the Schlegels and the lower classes as represented by the character of Leonard Bast.

Written in 1910, ‘Howards End,’ is a trenchant exploration of the social, economic, and intellectual forces at work in England in the years preceding World War I, a time when vast social changes were occurring.

In the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes, Forster perfectly embodies the competing idealism and materialism of the upper classes, while the conflict over the ownership of ‘Howards End’ represents the struggle for possession of the country’s future. As critic Lionel Trilling once noted, the novel asks, "Who shall inherit England?”

Forster refuses to take sides in this conflict. Instead he poses one of the book’s central questions: In a changing modern society, what should be the relation between the inner and outer life, between the world of the intellect and the world of business? Can they ever, as Forster urges, "only connect”?

About this title

About the Author:

Edward Morgan Forster was born on January 1, 1879, in Marylebone, London, England, an only child of the family. His father was an architect, who died of tuberculosis in 1880. Inheriting a large sum of money from his father’s aunt, he was able to live comfortably and become a writer. From 1897 to 1901, he attended King’s College, Cambridge. From 1901 through 1914, he toured Europe, Egypt, Germany and India with his mother, writing all but his last novel. During World War I, Forster volunteered with the International Red Cross, serving in Egypt. In the 1920s, he served as secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas, then completed his final book in 1924. During the 30s and 40s, Forster was a broadcaster on BBC Radio. After his mother died in 1945, at the age of 90, he moved out of her home and into Cambridge, where he did almost nothing for the next 25 years. He did have a relationship with a married policeman for many years. Forster died on June 7, 1970, at the age of 91, from a stroke, in Coventry, Warwickshire, England.

About the Author:

Author of such classic novels as Howards End, and A Passage to India.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1499248083
• ISBN 13: 9781499248081
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 269