A Room With A View

First published in 1908, ‘A Room with A View’ is a coming of age story of a young woman, by E.M. Forster, an English fiction writer, essayist, and librettist. Many of his novels examined class differences and hypocrisy.

Set against the stunning setting of Florence, Italy, during the Edwardian period, young Lucy Honeychurch travels the district with her domineering, old-fashioned cousin, Charlotte Bartlett. When Lucy meets the strange Emerson family, she forms an awkward friendship with their son, George. Through her relationship with the Emersons, and with other tourists, Lucy encounters the criticisms of society and must choose between a life of harmony and one of love.

The lasting pleasure of this tale of romance is embedded in Forster’s vibrant characters, including absurd spinsters, superior clergypersons, and candid patriots. It is one of E.M. Forster’s earliest and most outstanding works.

Edward Morgan Forster, generally published as E.M. Forster, was an novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. His humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End: "Only connect".

He had five novels published in his lifetime, achieving his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924) which takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj.

Forster's views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society. He is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised for his attachment to mysticism. His other works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908) and Maurice (1971), his posthumously published novel which tells of the coming of age of an explicitly gay male character.