Works by
E.M. Forster
(aka Edward Morgan Forster)
(Writer)
[1879 - 1970]

Novels

• Arctic Summer (1980)

• Commonplace Book (1979), Philip Gardner, ed.
  Quotes, miscellaneous writings, etc., written by E.M. Forster.

• Maurice (1970)
  Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and on into his father's firm, Hill and Hall, Stock Brokers. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way, "stepping into the niche that England had prepared for him": except that his is homosexual.
  
  Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time in its theme and in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. "Happiness," Forster wrote, "is its keynote….In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him."

  • Movie (1987), Directed by James Ivory with Hugh Grant, James Wilby, and Rupert Graves

    DVD VHS

• A Passage to India (1924)
  Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Lean’s Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India tells of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair.

  • Movie (1984), Directed by David Lean with Alec Guinness, James Fox, Judy Davis, Peggy Ashcroft, and Victor Banerjee  DVD VHS

• The Story of the Siren (1920)

• Howards End (1910)
  A chance acquaintance brings together the prosperous bourgeois Wilcox family and the clever, cultured, and idealistic Schlegel sisters. As clear-eyed Margaret develops a friendship with Mrs. Wilcox, the impetuous Helen brings into their midst a young bank clerk named Leonard Bast, who lives at the edge of poverty and ruin. When Mrs. Wilcox dies, her family discovers that she wants to leave her country home, Howards End, to Margaret. Thus Forster sets in motion a chain of events that will entangle three different families and brilliantly portrays their aspirations for personal and social harmony.

  • Movie (1991), Directed by James Ivory with Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Vanessa Redgrave  DVD VHS

• A Room with a View (1908)
  This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England.  A charming young English woman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza.  Attracted to this man, George Emerson--who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist--Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires.  Back in England she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor, and soon realizes she must make a startling decision that will decide the course of her future:  she is forced to choose between convention and passion.  The enduring delight of this tale of romantic intrigue is rooted in Forster's colorful characters, including outrageous spinsters, pompous clergymen and outspoken patriots. 

  • Movie (1985), Directed by James Ivor with Denholm Elliot, Helena Bonham-Carter, Judi Dench, and Julian Sands  DVD VHS

• The Longest Journey (1907)
  In this searching tragicomedy of manners, personalities, and world views, E. M. Forster explores the "idea of England" he would later develop in Howard's End. Bookish, sensitive, and given to wild enthusiasms, Rickie Elliot is virtually made for a life at Cambridge, where he can subsist on a regimen of biscuits and philosophical debate. But the love-smitten Rickie leaves his natural habitat to marry the devastatingly practical Agnes Pembroke, who brings with her — as a sort of dowry — a teaching position at the abominable Sawston School.

• Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)
  "Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand! Look at this letter! The man who wrote it will marry her, or murder her, or do for her somehow. He's a bounder, but he's not an English bounder. He's mysterious and terrible. He's got a country behind him that's upset people from the beginning of the world."
  
  When a young English widow takes off on the grand tour and along the way marries a penniless Italian, her in-laws are not amused. That the marriage should fail and poor Lilia die tragically are only to be expected. But that Lilia should have had a baby -- and that the baby should be raised as an Italian! -- are matters requiring immediate correction by Philip Herriton, his dour sister Harriet, and their well-meaning friend Miss Abbott.
  
  In his first novel, E. M. Forster anticipated the themes of cultural collision and the sterility of the English middle class that he would develop in A Room with a View and A Passage to India. Where Angels Fear to Tread is an accomplished, harrowing, and malevolently funny book, in which familiar notions of vice and virtue collapse underfoot and the best intentions go mortally awry.

  • Movie (1991), Directed Charles Sturridge with Giovanni Guidelli, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis, and Rupert Graves  DVD VHS

Collections

• The New Collected Short Stories (1989)

• The Collected Tales of E. M. Forster (1986)

• The Life to Come: And Others Stories (1972)

• Albergo Empedocle And Other Writings (1971)

• The Machine Stops: And Other Stories (1947)

• Collected Short Stories (1947)

• Abinger Harvest (1936)

• The Eternal Moment: And Other Stories (1928)

Anthologies With Stories by E.M. Forster

• The Science Fiction Century (1997), David G. Hartwell, ed.
  Includes works by A.E. Van Vogt, Bruce Sterling, C.S. Lewis, E.M. Forster, H.G. Wells, Jack London, Jack Vance, James Tiptree Jr., Michael Shaara, Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, and William Gibson

• Black Water (1983), Alberto Manguel, ed.

• The Best Science Fiction Stories (1977)

• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2B (1973),  Ben Bova, ed.

• 17 X Infinity (1963), Herbert Gold, ed.
  Includes works by E.M. Forster, Hal Draper, Henry Gregor Felson, Herbert Gold, Hollis Alpert, Howard Fast, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Goggin

• The Moonlight Traveller (1949), Philip Van Doren Stern, ed.

• Reading I'Ve Liked (1946), Clifton Fadiman, ed.

See also:

• Eudora Welty: A Biography (2005) by Suzanne Marrs
  Eudora Welty's works are treasures of American literature. When her first short-story collection was published in 1941, it heralded the arrival of a genuinely original writer who over the decades wrote hugely popular novels, novellas, essays, and a memoir, One Writer's Beginnings, that became a national bestseller. By the end of her life, Welty (who died in 2001) had been given nearly every literary award there was and was all but shrouded in admiration.
  
  In this definitive and authoritative account, Suzanne Marrs restores Welty's story to human proportions, tracing Welty's life from her roots in Jackson, Mississippi, to her rise to international stature. Making generous use of Welty's correspondence-particularly with contemporaries and admirers, including Katherine Anne Porter, E.M. Forster, and Elizabeth Bowen-Marrs has provided a fitting and fascinating tribute to one of the finest writers of the twentieth century.

• E. M. Forster's Modernism (2002) by David Medalie

• E. M. Forster (1999) by Nicholas Royle

• E. M. Forster: A Biography (1994) by Nicola Beauman

• E. M. Forster: Interviews and Recollections (1992) by Norman Page

• E. M. Forster (1980) by Lionel Trilling

• E. M. Forster and His World  (1978) by Francis Henry King

• E. M. Forster: A Life (1978) by P. N. Furbank

• Alexandria Still: Forster, Durrell, and Cavafy (1977) by Jane Lagoudis Pinchin

• The Writings of E.M. Forster (1972) by Rose Macaulay

• Forster: A Collection of Critical Essays (1966) by Malcolm Bradbury