E M Forster
E M Forster, author of Two Cheers for Democracy
Edward Morgan Forster was born in 1879. His father having died when he was a baby, he and his mother went to live at Rooksnest, the house that would be the model for Howards End. After an unhappy time at Tonbridge School, his years at Cambridge from 1897-1901 were the happiest and most formative period of his life. Afterwards, mother and son travelled in Italy for a year, then they settled in a house in Weybridge. Here he wrote all six of his novels, the first, Where Angels Fear to Tread, was published in 1905 and the last, A Passage to India, in 1924. (Maurice, written in c. 1912, was published posthumously. ) From 1934 Forster was the first President of the National Council for Civil Liberties. He wrote many essays and book reviews: some were collected in Abinger Harvest (1936) and Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). After 1945 he made his home at King’s College, Cambridge. He died in 1970.