E. M. Forster

E. M. Forster was an English novelist, born in London on 1 January 1879 and died on 7 June 1970. He grew up in a quiet, genteel household, studied at Cambridge, and spent his life among writers, thinkers and friends, including members of the Bloomsbury circle. He travelled in Italy, Greece and Egypt, and spent time in India, experiences that shaped his fiction.

His novels are comedies of manners with a serious heart. They explore the clash between convention and honest feeling, the divisions of class, and the difficulty of understanding people from other cultures. His best-known works, such as A Room With a View, Howards End and A Passage to India, are admired for their wit, humane tone and clear moral intelligence. He also wrote short stories, essays and literary criticism. His plea to 'only connect' remains one of the most memorable ideas in English fiction.