Edward Morgan Forster was born in London
on January 1, 1879 to the parentage of Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster and Alice
Clara Whichelo. They were an upper middle
class family (the types of families he would write about in novels such as "A Room With a View
" and "Howards End
,") but his father, an architect
, died of consumption before Forster was two years old. He was raised by his mother and great-aunt Marianne Thornton. His mother taught him about injustice and she was the original inspiration
for much of what shows up in his themes. Forster shared a house with his mother
until she passed away in 1945. Forster would later write a biography
on his great aunt
, Marianne Forster, and publish it in 1956.
Forster was educated at Tonbridge in Kent, where he was treated cruelly by classmates, and then at King's College in Cambridge. He enjoyed traveling tremendously and ended up living in Italy for several years as well as in Greece, Germany and India. During these travels Forster seriously began to start writing. Several short stories of his were published in journals such as the "Independant Review" and his first novel, "Where Angels Fear to Tread," was published in 1905 when he was only 26 years old. "The Longest Journey" was published two years later. "A Room with a View" was the next major piece of his to be published in 1908, though he'd been working on the novel for years beforehand. When "Howards End" was published in 1910, Forster had established himself as a successful writer. From 1914 to 1915 he worked for the National Gallery in London, and during this time he became a part of the Bloomsbury Group, a group which included writers and artists such as Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey.
Forster's last novel, "A Passage to India," was published in 1924. He continued to publish political essays and several biographies and later was hired as a broadcaster for the BBC. He was given membership in the Order of Companions of Honour in 1953 and received the Order of Merit in 1969. E.M. Forster died on June 7, 1970 at age 91. Although his work is no great sum in total, Forster is thought of as one of the 20th century's greatest writers.
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