E. M. Forster
Список книг автора E. M. ForsterThe Longest Journey
The works of English essayist, novelist and short story writer, E.M. Forster, rank in the sphere of such influential writers as James Joyce, William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf for their remarkable humanist views and emphasis on the conflicts of English social classes. Forster's own favorite of his works, «The Longest Journey» touches on themes of family, sexuality, preoccupation with material society, and the necessity of passion in life. This novel is considered to be the most autobiographical of Forster's works, and explores his most humanistic views through the life of Rickie Elliot, a young man whose upbringing and education reflects the author's own experiences. Rickie's journey from childhood, through school, the discovery of an unknown brother, and later marriage serves as an example to readers of all generations of the necessity for personal connections, and more importantly passion, in every person's life.
Howards End
First published in 1910, “Howards End” is E. M. Forster’s classic story regarding social conventions of different strata of English society at the end of the 19th century. The story centers around three families; the Wilcoxes, a wealthy family who made their fortune in the African colonies; the Schlegels, three siblings, Margaret, Helen, and Tibby, who represent the intellectual bourgeoisie; and the Basts, a young struggling couple from a lower class background. The Schlegels are lively socialites whose spirited and active lifestyles bring them by chance into contact with the Wilcoxes and the Basts. Through the entanglement between these three families, Forster masterfully depicts the struggle between the upper and lower classes that would dominate England at the end of the 19th century. Forster drew upon memories of his childhood home, Rooks Nest in Hertfordshire, for the titular Howards End, a country estate of the Wilcoxes where part of the story takes place, and whose ownership comes into question when the Wilcox matriarch, Ruth, makes a death-bed bequeath of the estate to Margaret Schlegel. The fate of Howards End, and the lives of the family’s affiliated with it, is brilliantly represented by Forster as a parallel to the fate of English Society itself at the turn of the century. This edition includes a biographical afterword.
