Author: Edward M. Forster

1Room with a View

By E. M. Forster

When Lucy Honeychurch travels to Italy with her cousin, she meets George Emerson, a bohemian and an atheist who falls in love with her. Upon her return to England, she is forced to choose between free-spirited George and her more conventional fiancé, Cecil Vyse. The story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. (Summary from Wikipedia)

2Howards End

By E. M. Forster

The book is about three families in England at the beginning of the twentieth century. The three families represent different gradations of the Edwardian middle class: the Wilcoxes, who are rich capitalists with a fortune made in the Colonies; the half-German Schlegel siblings (Margaret, Tibby, and Helen), who represent the intellectual bourgeoisie and have a lot in common with the real-life Bloomsbury Group; and the Basts, a couple who are struggling members of the lower-middle class. The Schlegel sisters try to help the poor Basts and try to make the Wilcoxes less prejudiced. The motto of the book is "Only connect..."

3Howards End (version 2)

By E. M. Forster

The Schlegels frequently encounter the Wilcoxes. The youngest, Helen, is rejected by the younger Wilcox brother, Paul. The eldest, Margaret, becomes friends with his mother Ruth Wilcox. Ruth's most prized personal possession is her family house at Howards End. She wishes that Margaret could live there, as she feels that it might be in good hands with her. Ruth's own husband and children do not value the house and its rich history, because such abstractions, while being very dear to Margaret, are lost to them. As she is terminally ill, and Margaret and her family are about to be evicted from their London home by a developer, Ruth bequeaths the cottage to Margaret in a handwritten note found among her effects when she dies, causing great consternation among the Wilcoxes. Mrs Wilcox's widowed husband Henry and his children burn the note without telling Margaret about her inheritance. However, over the course of several years, Margaret becomes friends with Henry Wilcox and eventually marries him. The more free-spirited Margaret tries to get Henry to open up more, to little effect. Henry's elder son Charles and his wife try to keep Margaret from taking possession of Howards End. (Summary from Wikipedia)

The Machine Stops is a short science fiction story. It describes a world in which almost all humans have lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual lives in isolation in a 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Most humans welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of first-hand experience. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own. Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as 'unmechanical' and are threatened with "Homelessness". Eventually, the Machine apocalyptically collapses, and the civilization of the Machine comes to an end. (Wikipedia)<br /><br />Comment by book coordinator: A condensed rapidfire of details and ideas imagining a dystopian world. Good thing he made it a short story. And the world he describes feels so appalling, although we are good on the way to be where Forster imagined us - shocker. So imaginative for 1909! Staying at home with the telly and internet and instant messaging and videoconferencing, google and pizza delivery and all flats and all cities look alike. And the loss of Patience! Damn this is good and so true - with one big exception the many buttons for all the machines functions. But how would Forster know of digital interfaces? That would have been too much to foresee.

5Where Angels Fear to Tread

By E. M. Forster

On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and traveling companion Caroline Abbott, widowed Lilia Herriton falls in love with both Italy and a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but he arrives too late. Lilia marries the Italian and in due course becomes pregnant again. When she dies giving birth to her child, the Herritons consider it both their right and their duty to travel to Monteriano to obtain custody of the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman. (Summary from Wikipedia)

6Longest Journey

By E. M. Forster

Frederick Elliot is a student at early 20th century Cambridge, a university that seems like paradise to him, amongst bright if cynical companions, when he receives a visit from two friends, an engaged young woman, Agnes Pembroke, and her older brother, Herbert. The Pembrokes are Rickie’s only friends from home. An orphan who grew up living with cousins, he was sent to a public (boarding) school where he was shunned and bullied because of his lame foot, an inherited weakness, and frail body. Agnes, as it happens, is engaged to Gerald, now in the army, who was one of the sturdy youths who bullied Rickie at school. Rickie is not brilliant at argument, but he is intensely responsive to poetry and art, and is accepted within a circle of philosophical and intellectual fellow-students led by a brilliant but especially cynical aspiring philosopher, Stuart Ansell, who refuses, when he is introduced to her, even to acknowledge that Agnes exists. (from Wikipedia)

Published in 1909, this science fiction short story takes place in a future where mankind, seemingly no longer able to survive on earth's surface, exists in a vast underground civilization known as "The Machine". Each individual lives in an isolated, fully-automated cell-like room, connected to global information and communication systems, but cut off from all direct experience. The narrative focuses on Vashti, an "advanced" mother whose total dependence upon The Machine has led her (like most others) to increasingly reverence and even worship it; and her "untechnological" son, Kuno, who has begun to deny The Machine's omnipotence and even seeks to escape if possible. Kuno's radical views are validated as the The Machine's systems begin to malfunction and eventually fail completely.<br /><br />The story has proved to be far ahead of its time, with remarkably accurate predictions of modern technologies, and paints a chilling picture of over-dependence on them. This recording marks the 100th anniversary of the original publishing. (Summary by Jerome Lawsen)

8Room with a View (version 2)

By E. M. Forster

The 1908 novel A Room With a View is the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young English girl traveling to Italy for the first time. While staying in Florence, Lucy meets the unconventional George Emerson, with whom she shares a single passionate kiss, much to the horror of her chaperone, her spinsterish cousin Charlotte. Back in England, Lucy finds she must choose between George and her rather stuffy fiance Cecil Vyse. Forster's wonderfully comic romance satirizes turn-of-the-century English culture (as did his other major novel of the period, Howards End). (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)

"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories. The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. ( Summary by Wikipedia )

10Room with a View (version 3 dramatic reading)

By E. M. Forster

A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by English writer E. M. Forster, about a young woman in the repressed culture of Edwardian era England. Set in Italy and England, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. (Summary by Wikipedia)<br><br><strong>Cast</strong>:<br>Lucy Honeychurch/Narrator: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/3536">Arielle Lipshaw</a><br>Charlotte Bartlett: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/1259">Elizabeth Klett</a><br>Mr. Emerson: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/7150">asterix</a><br>George Emerson: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/7867">nomorejeffs</a><br>Mr. Beebe: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/3912">Bob Neufeld</a><br>Miss Eleanor Lavish: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/4145">Patti Cunningham</a><br>Miss Theresa Alan: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/5471">ElleyKat</a><br>Miss Catharine Alan: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/7766">Maryanka</a><br>Italian Lady/Persephone/Maid: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/7679">Libby Gohn</a><br>Mr. Eager/Powell: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/4267">Ric F</a><br>Vicar/Sir Harry Otway/Phaethon/Freddy Honeychurch: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/8169">tovarisch</a><br>Mrs. Honeychurch: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/7138">CaprishaPage</a><br>Cecil Vyse: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/4535">Brett W. Downey</a><br>Mrs. Vyse: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/7925">Etel Buss</a><br>Minnie Beebe: <a href="http://librivox.org/reader/7315">Charlotte Duckett</a><br><br><strong>Audio edited by:</strong> Arielle Lipshaw

"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in 1909 the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the populist anthology Modern Short Stories. In 1973 it was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two. The story is particularly notable for predicting new technologies such as instant messaging and the Internet. In the preface to his Collected Short Stories (1947), Forster wrote that "The Machine Stops is a reaction to one of the earlier heavens of H. G. Wells." Although not all Wells's stories were optimistic about the future, this implies Forster was concerned about human dependence on technology. - Summary by Wikipedia

12Howards End (version 3)

By E. M. Forster

Considered Forster's masterpiece and one of the best books of the 20th century, Howards End tackles social conventions of the Edwardian era. The story focuses on three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century: the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the colonies; the half-German Schlegel siblings (Margaret, Helen, and Tibby), whose cultural pursuits have much in common with the Bloomsbury Group; and the Basts, an impoverished young couple from a lower-class background. The idealistic, intelligent Schlegel sisters seek to help the struggling Basts and to rid the Wilcoxes of some of their deep-seated social and economic prejudices. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

13Passage to India (Dramatic Reading)

By E. M. Forster

A Passage to India (1924) is a novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Aziz, his British friend Mr. Cyril Fielding, Mrs. Moore, and Miss Adela Quested. During a trip to the fictitious Marabar Caves (modeled on the Barabar Caves of Bihar), Adela thinks she finds herself alone with Dr. Aziz in one of the caves (when in fact he is in an entirely different cave), and subsequently panics and flees; it is assumed that Dr. Aziz has attempted to assault her. Aziz's trial, and its run-up and aftermath, bring to a boil the common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British who rule India.

14Passage to India

By E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster’s <i>A Passage to India</i> (1924) is widely acclaimed as one of the hundred best literary works of 20th century. <i>Time</i> magazine rates it among the top 100 English-language novels of all time.<br><br> <i>A Passage to India</i> is set at the moment when the lasting supremacy of the British Raj could no longer be taken for granted. Imperial power had been effectively supported by old and deep-seated religious and cultural conflicts between India’s Hindu and Muslim populations, which divided and sapped the local powers ultimately needed to overthrew imperial rule in 1947. Forster illustrates how this rift begins to be overshadowed by the increasing resistance of all Indians to the extreme racism, oppression and socio-political mismanagement of British rule.<br><br> The work is perhaps best known for his brilliant development of the relationships between his characters, which are fraught by a wide range of precarious cultural, social, political and economic dualisms: e.g., Occident / Orient; imperialist / colonial; men / women. He carries the idea expressed in his famous words “only connect” (from Howards End) to its limits, examining the difficulties – often the inherent impossibility – of “connection” across racial, sexual, religious and social divides. - Summary by Kirsten Wever

15Celestial Omnibus, and Other Stories

By E. M. Forster

With twenty Nobel Prize nominations to his credit, E. M. Forster may reasonably be considered one of the best writers of the 20th century – perhaps of all time. He is best known for his 1924 novel <a href="https://librivox.org/a-passage-to-india-by-e-m-forster/">A Passage to India</a>. But almost all his writings met with rapid critical, popular and international success.<br><br> Forster’s world-view was exceptionally broad – even multi-cultural – as expressed in the humanism characterizing all his works, in the wide-ranging social criticism of Howard’s End, and in the spiritual and mystical themes for which A Passage to India is famous, and which also underlie the stories collected in The Celestial Omnibus. - Summary by Kirsten Wever

16Aspects of the Novel

By E. M. Forster

This s a series of lectures given at Trinity College by the acclaimed author E.M. Forster (A Passage to India, Howard's End, A Room With a View) . In them, he discusses "both the different ways we can look at a novel and the different ways a novelist can look at his work." The aspects of the novel Forster discusses are the story, people, plot,, fantasy, prophecy and rhythm. While this is a work of academic analysis and not what one expects in a Forster work, the author's wit and voice help make the book very accessible and engaging. - Summary by Ciufi Galeazzi