In Howard's End , E.M. Forster unveils the English character as never before, exploring the underlying class warfare involving three distinct groups - a wealthy family bound by the rules of tradition and property, two independent, cultured sisters, and a young man living on the edge of poverty. The source of their conflict - Howards End, a house in the countryside which ultimately becomes a symbol of conflict within British society.
Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879. He wrote six novels, four of which appeared before the First World War: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and Howard's End (1910). An interval of fourteen years elapsed before he published A Passage to India. Maurice, his novel on a homosexual theme, finished in 1914, was published posthumously in 1971. He died in June 1970.
With a new Introduction by James IvoryCommentary by Virginia Woolf, Lionel Trilling, Malcolm Bradbury, and Joseph Epstein "Howards End is a classic English novel . . . superb and wholly cherishable . . . one that admirers have no trouble reading over and over again," said Alfred Kazin. First published in 1910, Howards End is the novel that earned E. M. Forster recognition as a major writer. At its heart lie two families the wealthy and business-minded Wilcoxes and the cultured and idealistic Schlegels. When the beautiful and independent Helen Schlegel begins an impetuous affair with the ardent Paul Wilcox, a series of events is sparked some very funny, some very tragic that results in a dispute over who will inherit Howards End, the Wilcoxes' charming country home. As much about the clash between individual wills as the clash between the sexes and the classes, Howards End is a novel whose central tenet, "Only connect," remains a powerful prescription for modern life. "Howards End is undoubtedly Forster's masterpiece; it develops to their full the themes and attitudes of [his] early books and throws back upon them a new and enhancing light," wrote the critic Lionel Trilling."