E M FORSTER BIOGRAPHY E M FORSTER FAMILY

E. M. FORSTER BIOGRAPHY

E. M. FORSTER

FAMILY • Edward Morgan (E. M. ) Forster was born into a comfortable London family on January 1, 1879. • When Forster was one year old, his father, an architect, died; he then was raised by his mother and an aunt in the southern English county of Hertfordshire, where he enjoyed a happy childhood. • Forster was surrounded by strong female role models, which likely led him to develop strong female characters in his novels.

EDUCATION • As a boy Forster attended Tonbridge, a private school. • Later he attended King's College, Cambridge, where he found intellectual freedom and began to explore the ideas that would eventually surface in his novels. • Forster considered himself a humanist, valuing "curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race. “ • Forster graduated with degrees in classics in 1900 and history in 1901.

LITERARY LIFE • Forster then became a full-time writer—an occupation made possible in part by an inheritance from a relative. • He produced novels, operas, short stories, literary criticism, and other works. • Forster was greatly interested in the differences between traditional English society and the cultures of other parts of the world. • His novels set outside England draw heavily on his experiences overseas, featuring detailed descriptions of places, people, and cultures, often seen through the eyes of English tourists and expatriates.

LITERARY WORKS Some of the novel of Forster are: • Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) • The Longest Journey (1907) • A Room with a View (1908) • Howards End (1910) • A Passage to India (1924) • Maurice (written in 1913– 14, published posthumously in 1971

MOST FAMOUS WORK A Passage to India (1924) • His greatest achievement as a novelist would come with A Passage to India, published in 1924. • The novel takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.

DEATH • In 1946 King's College, Cambridge, named him an Honorary Fellow and invited him to live on campus. He remained there for the rest of his life. Forster died on June 7, 1970.