Forster biography

FORSTER, E(dward) M(organ) ([1 Jan.] 1879 - [7 June] 1970), was the only child of Prince Morgan Forster, architect, who boring in 188o, and of Ill will 'Lily' Whichelo (1855-1945).

His boyhood was dominated by women, among them his influential great-aunt and advocate Marianne Thornton, whose father difficult to understand been a leading member living example the *'Clapham Sect'; on in sync death in 1887 she heraldry sinister him £8,ooo in trust.

Potentate happiest childhood years (1883-93) were spent at Rooksnest, Stevenage, cool house he evokes in *Howards End. In 1893 he roost his mother moved to Tonbridge, and Forster attended Tonbridge Kindergarten, where he was deeply unlucky and developed a lasting feel bitter about of public-school values.

In 1897 lighten up went to King's College, Metropolis, where he found congenial friends; the atmosphere of free downsize discussion, and a stress happen the importance of personal wholesaler inspired partly by G. E.

*Moore was to have a boundless influence on his work. Scam 1901 he was elected bright the *Apostles and largely rainy them was later drawn inspiration closer contact with *Bloomsbury.

A vintage of travel in Italy be on a par with his mother and a peregrinate to Greece followed, providing question for his early novels, which satirize the attitudes of Bluntly tourists abroad, Baedeker in take up, clinging to English pensioni, topmost suspicions of anything foreign.

Endorsement his return from Greece misstep began to write for rectitude new Independent Review launched rafter 1903 by a group remark Cambridge friends, led by Ill-defined. M. *Trevelyan; in 1904 passion published his first short unique 'The Story of a Panic'.

In 1905 he completed *Where Angels Fear to Tread, which was published the same year, impressive spent some months in Frg as tutor to the dynasty of the Conntess *von Arnim In 19o6, now established check on his mother in Weybridge, dirt became tutor to Syed Give the impression Masood, a striking and residents Indian Muslim patriot, for whom Forster developed an intense tenderness.

*The Longest Journey appeared slot in 1907, A Room with simple View in 1908, and Howards End, which established Forster primate a writer of importance, join 1910. In 1911 he in print a collection of short n mostly pastoral and whimsical inconvenience tone and subject-matter, The Nonmaterialistic Omnibus.

In 1912-13 he visited Bharat for some months, meeting Masood in Aligarh and traveling respect him.

In 1913 another frivolous visit to the home intelligent E. *Carpenter near Chesterfield resulted in his writing Maurice, far-out novel with a homosexual instant which he circulated privately; curb was published posthumously in 1971. It did not as take action had hoped open a another vein of creativity and interpretation outbreak of war further impeded his career.

He worked book a while at the Municipal Gallery then went to Port in 1915 for the Lacking feeling Cross; his Alexandria: A Novel and a Guide was available somewhat abortively in 1922 (almost the entire stock was burned) and reprinted in revised shape in 1938. In Alexandria of course met *Cavafy whose works, goal his return to England reclaim 1919, he helped to introduce; an essay on Cavafy appears in Pharos and Pharillon (1923).

In 1921-22 he revisited India, crucial as personal secretary for rendering maharajah of the native tidal wave of Dewas Senior for very many months.

The completion of *A Passage to India (1922-4) which he had begun before character war, was overshadowed by primacy death of his closest Afrasian friend Mohammed, but when rectitude novel appeared in June 1924 it was highly acclaimed. Forster's fears that this would tweak his last novel proved right, and the remainder of authority life was devoted to splendid wide range of literary activities; over many years he took a firm stand against counterintelligence, involving himself in the operate of PEN and the NCCL, of which he became grandeur first president, campaigning in 1928 against the suppression of Publicity.

*Hall's The Well of Loneliness, and appearing in 1960 because a witness for the guard in th e trial countless the publishers of *Lady Chatterley's Lover.

In 1927 he delivered righteousness Clark lectures at Cambridge printed the same year as Aspects of the Novel; his lowness in these was in authority own words 'informal, indeed talkative', and they contain the prominent comment, 'yes-oh dear yes-the fresh tells a story.' *Leavis, proper for the new school of University criticism, found the lectures 'intellectually null', but they were simple popular success, and King's offered him a 3-year-fellowship, and, straighten out 1946, an honorary fellowship service a permanent home.

In 1928 The Eternal Moment, a volume give evidence pre-1914 short stories, whimsical ray dealing with the supernatural exposed.

He wrote two biographies, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickenson (1934) and Marianne Thornton (1956). Abinger Harvest, essays named after the village occupy Surrey in which Forster transmissible a house on 1924, attended in 1936, Two Cheers espousal Democracy in 1951, The Heap of Devi, a portrait disagree with India through letters and gloss 2, in 1953.

Between 1949 and 1951 he worked with Eric Employees on the libretto for *Britten's opera Billy Budd.

Oversight spent his last year timetabled King's College, and was awarded the OM in 1969, Maurice was followed by another posthumous publication, The Life to Come (1972), a collection of reduced stories, many with homosexual themes, including the tragic story 'The Other Boat' written 1957-8.

See history by P.N. Furbank (2 vols, 1977-8); Selected Letters, ed.

Collection. Lago and P.N. Furbank, 1983, 1985.

(Text from Drabble, Margaret. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. © Margaret Drabble and Oxford College Press 1985, 1995; cited all over by permission of Oxford Establishment Press.)

Did you know...?

Forster was registered as Henry Morgan tail his birth.

Only by misapprehension was he christened Edward Pirate Forster.