A Room With a View (Diversion Classics)

E.M. Forster

May 2016 · Diversion Books

About this ebook

Featuring an appendix of discussion questions, the Diversion Classics edition is ideal for use in book groups and classrooms.

Lucy Honeychurch journeys from England to Italy on holiday hoping to broaden her world, but it’s not the beauty of Florence that she falls in love with. No, trapped in a hotel populated by nothing but fellow Britons, it’s hard for Lucy to experience Italy at all. To make matters worse, the room with the view she was promised isn’t available. Overhearing her dismay, a father and son duo offer to switch rooms with her. It is a generous gesture met with revulsion from Lucy’s suffocating chaperone, for to accept would put them in a compromising position and be a major social gaffe. Touched by the kindness of it and for the first time in her life questioning the barriers of her social standing, Lucy develops a fondness for the two uncouth gentlemen. In fact, George Emerson, younger of the two, might be the only spot of joy Lucy has in Florence. No sooner does Lucy find herself falling for George, who values her mind and spirit, when she is whisked away to Rome. There, she meets Cecil Vyse who, though domineering, pompous, and snide, matches her social standing and proposes.

Lucy, thinking she is making the most practical choice, is ready to settle for Cecil. But when George moves closer to her and confesses his true feelings, Lucy must choose between her true desires and that which she was taught was best her entire life.

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About the author

Edward Morgan Forster was born on January 1, 1879, in London, England. He never knew his father, who died when Forster was an infant. Forster graduated from King's College, Cambridge, with B.A. degrees in classics (1900) and history (1901), as well as an M.A. (1910). In the mid-1940s he returned to Cambridge as a professor, living quietly there until his death in 1970. Forster was named to the Order of Companions of Honor to the Queen in 1953. Forster's writing was extensively influenced by the traveling he did in the earlier part of his life. After graduating from Cambridge, he lived in both Greece and Italy, and used the latter as the setting for the novels Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and A Room with a View (1908). The Longest Journey was published in 1907. Howard's End was modeled on the house he lived in with his mother during his childhood. During World War I, he worked as a Red Cross Volunteer in Alexandria, aiding in the search for missing soldiers; he later wrote about these experiences in the nonfiction works Alexandria: A History and Guide and Pharos and Pharillon. His two journeys to India, in 1912 and 1922, resulted in A Passage to India (1924), which many consider to be Forster's best work; this title earned the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Forster wrote only six novels, all prior to 1925 (although Maurice was not published until 1971, a year after Forster's death, probably because of its homosexual theme). For much of the rest of his life, he wrote literary criticism (Aspects of the Novel) and nonfiction, including biographies (Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson), histories, political pieces, and radio broadcasts. Howard's End, A Room with a View, and A Passage to India have all been made into successful films.