E M Forster

E M Forster by Dora Carrington, 1924–25

Edward Morgan Forster (1879–1970) was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. Forster's humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End: "Only connect."

Forster was educated at Tonbridge School, and at King's College, Cambridge where he was a member of the Apostles.

Forster lived at Rooks Nest, Stevenage from 1883 to 1893, and there is a monument to him in Stevenage.

Forster's main novels published in his lifetime were: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924).

Forster was gay but closeted, and a lifelong bachelor.

His gay-themed novel Maurice was written in 1913–14, but published posthumously in 1971.

Forster's life and relationships are depicted in the novel Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut (the title is that of an unfinished novel by Forster]].

In 1960, Mattei Radev, Bulgarian-Macedonian refugee, met EM Forster and, despite the 46 years difference, they fell in love and embarked on what has been called "a secret, somewhat tortured affair" .