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.
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
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
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.
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.
Manuscripts of novels and letters to friends and acquaintances comprise the bulk of the E. M. Forster Collection, 1908-1971. The collection is organized into three series, with materials arranged alphabetically by title or author: I. Works, 1910-1960 (2 boxes); II. Correspondence, 1908-1967 (3.5 boxes); and III. Works by Other Authors, 1933-1971 (.5 box). This collection was previously accessible through a card catalog, but has been re-cataloged as part of a retrospective conversion project.
The Works Series contains several holograph drafts of essays on topics ranging from liberty to tolerance, and three holograph manuscripts of
The Correspondence Series is particularly interesting as it is almost exclusively composed of personal letters from Forster to various friends and acquaintances. The series is organized into two sections, Outgoing Correspondence, 1908-1967, and Third-party Correspondence, 1925-1937. Outgoing correspondence comprises over 800 letters from Forster to J. R. Ackerley, Morgan's friend and confidante, and over 200 letters to Malcolm Darling, another close friend. Also represented among the recipients of letters are Dora Carrington, Francis King, John Lehmann, Colin Spencer, and others. The Third-party section contains a scant handful of personal letters between people other than Forster. All correspondents in this series are listed in the Index of Correspondents in this guide.
The Works by Other Authors Series contains a small number of writings by other people. Included is a list of the Cambridge University, King's College Library's collection of Forster's papers, a biographical pamphlet about Forster written by Rex Warner, and the Memorandum of Agreement between Albatross Verlag and Forster for publication of
Purchases, 1960-1981 (R16, R594, R2030, R3082, R3730, R3731, R5180, 55463, R8497, R8509-12, R9084)
Open for research. This collection has been microfilmed. Researchers must create an online Research Account and agree to the Materials Use Policy before using archival materials.
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Authorization for publication is given on behalf of the University of Texas as the owner of the collection and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder which must be obtained by the researcher. For more information please see the Ransom Center's Open Access and Use Policies.
Chelsea Jones, 1998
Other materials associated with Forster may be found in the following
collections at the Ransom Center:
Box and folder numbers are followed by a number in parentheses which
indicates the number of items written by that person. A single item is
indicated where there is no number in parentheses following the box and folder
number. Where there is correspondence from E. M. Forster, the number in
parentheses is followed by the phrase
Monroe, Harold--6.3 (10 from Forster), 6.7
there are 10 letters from Forster in Box 6, Folder 3 and one letter from Monroe in Box 6, Folder 7.