E.M. Forster

Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970), British novelist, essayist, short story writer and critic, was born at Marylebone, London. His architect father died when Forster was very young and he was brought up by his mother. Forster’s celebrated works include the novels A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), A Passage to India (1924), and Maurice (1971) as well as a large corpus of criticism.

Forster broke new ground by departing from the elaborate, flowery style of his predecessors and adopted a freer, more colloquial style in his books. His novels were seeped in social commentary, which was based on his in-depth observations of middle-class lives. He also had a deep-rooted interest in Mediterranean “paganism,”

which called for humans to maintain their connection with the natural world and live a life attuned to the earth’s rhythms.