Howards End
First published 1910 · English · 286 pages
- Love and romance
- History and politics
A novel of Edwardian England following three families: the cultured, independent Schlegel sisters, the wealthy and conventional Wilcoxes, and the struggling clerk Leonard Bast. A chance friendship between Margaret Schlegel and the Wilcox family draws these worlds together, and a country house called Howards End becomes the focus of rival claims. Forster explores money, class, inheritance and the changing English landscape, urging readers to connect the prose and the passion in life. It is often thought his finest social novel.
Quotes
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.
Death destroys a man: the idea of Death saves him.
The present flowed by them like a stream. The tree rustled. It had made music before they were born, and would continue after their deaths, but its song was of the moment.
We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.