BACKGROUND INFORMATION

E. M. FORSTER

E. M. Forster (1879 - 1970) was educated at Tarbridge School and King's College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, there was an atmosphere of free intellectual discussion, inspired by G.M. Moore, the famous philosopher who stressed the importance of personal relationship. This philosophy made a profound impression on Forster. After graduation, Forster became a novelist, essayist and literary critic. Being widely traveled, his journeys gave him materials for his writing. He became particularly critical of the English behavior abroad, and his writings often satirize the British in foreign lands.

Forster became friends with many well-known writers, including John Maynard Keynes, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Bertrand Russell and others who eventually formed an integral part of what is known as the Bloomsbury group. In fact Forster's initial articles and short stories were published in The Independent Review, a Bloomsbury journal. It was his novels, however, that attracted attention. His works include Where Angles Fear to Tread (1905), The Largest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), Howard's End (1910), The Celestial Omnibus (1911), Maurice (1911), Alexandria: A History and a Guide (1922), A Passage to India (1924), Aspects of the Novel (1927), The Eternal Moment (1928), Two Cheers for Democracy (1951), The Hill or Devil (1953), and the biographies of Galsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1934) and Marianne Thorntar (1956). The Life to Come (1972) was published posthumously.

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