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Edward Morgan Forster was born January 1, 1879, in London. His father,
also Edward Morgan, was an architect and died of consumption 18 months after
the birth of his son, leaving him in the care of his mother, Alice Clara
Whichelo and a variety of female relatives. Forster's mother moved with her
young son to rural Hertfordshire in 1883 where he lived for most of his
childhood before being sent to Kent House preparatory school in Eastbourne. In
1887 a great-aunt left a legacy to Forster which, when combined with his
father's estate, paid for Forster's education and later allowed him the leisure
to be a writer without needing to worry about income. Forster finished his
school days at Tonbridge School, which he attended as a day student rather than
as a boarder between 1893-1897. |
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In the autumn of 1897, Forster entered King's College, Cambridge, where
he found liberation from the conformist attitudes of preparatory school. He was
elected to the Apostles in 1901, along with Desmond MacCarthy, and became
acquainted with the well-known alumni of that society, G.E. Moore, Lytton
Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, Leonard Woolf, and Roger Fry, among others, who
later introduced him into the Bloomsbury group. It was at Cambridge that
Forster began to think of himself as a writer and the years immediately
following his graduation were his most productive as a novelist. Between 1903
and 1910 he produced
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905),
The Longest Journey (1907),
A Room with a View (1908), and
Howards End (1910), all four of which are
now regarded as classics. |
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After 1910 Forster wrote mostly short stories and essays. He also
traveled, taking a long trip to India in 1912 and spending a greater part of
World War I in Egypt working with the Red Cross. A travel guide to Alexandria
and a collection of essays resulted from his time in Egypt and after his second
trip to India in 1921 he completed
A Passage to India (1924). Forster's final
novel,
Maurice (1971) was actually written in 1914
and then frequently revised after 1924, but was not published until after his
death. This novel deals with the topic of homosexuality and is thought to be at
least partly autobiographical. |
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After World War I Forster wrote an increasing number of essays on the
human condition and more specifically on the state of life in England and the
value of democracy, which the onset of the Depression, Nazism, and the
impending crisis of World War II seemed to be threatening. His essays brought
him a great deal of public notice and in 1934 he was elected president of the
National Council for Civil Liberties. He is given credit for playing a large
role in having the provisions of the Sedition Bill modified. When World War II
broke out, Forster returned to his mother's home in West Hackhurst. |
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After the war, Forster accepted a fellowship at Cambridge where he
maintained a residence for the rest of his life. He began to gain international
acclaim after 1945 and wrote copiously through the early 1960s. He suffered a
stroke in 1964 and another one the following year which caused his overall
health to decline. He suffered a major stroke in May of 1970 and on June 7 he
died at the home of friends. |