1 January 1879: E.M. Forster is born

E.M. Forster spent several months in the summer of 1905 in Nassenheide, Pomerania (now the Polish village of Rzędziny), as a tutor to the children of the writer Elizabeth von Arnim. He wrote a short memoir of this experience, which was one of the happiest times in his life. [1]

Edward Morgan Forster, known to generations of readers as E.M. Forster, was born on 1 January 1879 in London, into a comfortably middle-class world that would later become the subject of both his affection and his sharpest scrutiny. His father, Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster, was an architect who died of tuberculosis before his son was two years old, leaving young Morgan — as he was called — to be raised principally by his mother, Alice Clara (known as “Lily”), and a circle of devoted aunts. As a child, Forster received an inheritance from his paternal great-aunt, Marianne Thornton, which enabled him to travel and, later, write with little concern for finances.

Educated first at Tonbridge School in Kent (which he hated) and then at King’s College, Cambridge, Forster found intellectual liberation at university. His Cambridge years broadened his horizons, introduced him to key figures of the future Bloomsbury Group where liberal thinking and frank conversation liberated him from the conventions of his earlier upbringing. It was here that he began writing fiction seriously, absorbing influences from classical literature, modern philosophy and the early spirit of social questioning that defined the turn of the twentieth century.

After graduating in 1901, Forster toured Europe, especially Italy and Greece, travels that enriched his sense of culture and place. Back in England, he turned to writing, publishing stories, sketches, and essays before releasing his first novels. His early works — Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), and A Room with a View (1908) — reveal a novelist attuned to the shifting social currents of the Edwardian era and gifted with keen observational skill.

His most celebrated novels followed soon after. Howards End, published in 1910 and based on his childhood home at Rooksnest in Hertfordshire famously urged readers to “only connect”, and A Passage to India, published in 1924, extended his vision to the complexities of empire and cultural misunderstanding. Although he did not publish any further novels, his literary achievements included essays, lectures, criticism, and a quietly influential role as a mentor to younger writers.

Forster never married and had a number of male lovers during his adult life. He was open with his close friends about his homosexuality, though didn’t acknowledge it publicly. He died on 7 June 1970, aged 91.