E. M. Forster

The Penguin English Library Edition of Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster'I had got an idea that everyone here spent their lives in making little sacrifices for objects they didn't care for, to please people they didn't love; that they never learned to be sincere - and, what's as bad, never learned how to enjoy themselves' E. M. Forster's first novel is a witty comedy of manners that is tinged with tragedy. It tells the story of Lilia Herriton, who proves to be an embarrassment to her late husband's family as, in the small Tuscan town of Monteriano, she begins a relationship with a much younger Italian man - classless, uncouth and highly unsuitable. A subtle attack on decorous Edwardian values and a humanely sympathetic portrayal of the clash of two cultures, Where Angels Fear to Tread is also a profound exploration of character and virtue.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

E. M. Forster's beloved Italian novels, now in an Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics single hardcover volume.Forster's most memorably romantic exploration of the liberating effects of Italy on the English, A Room with a View follows the carefully chaperoned Lucy Honeychurch to Florence. There she meets the unconventional George Emerson and finds herself inspired by his refreshingly free spirit-- which puts her in mind of "a room with a view"--to escape the claustrophobic snobbery of her guardians back in England. The wicked tragicomedy Where Angels Fear to Tread chronicles a young English widow's trip to Italy and its messy aftermath. When Lilia Herriton impulsively marries a penniless Italian and then dies in childbirth, her first husband's family sets out to rescue the child from his "uncivilized" surroundings. But in ways that they can't possibly imagine, their narrow preconceptions will be upended by the rich and varied charms of Forster's cherished Italy. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

Lucy Honeychurch arrives in Italy for the first time, dependent on a Baedeker travel guide and her stern chaperone, Miss Bartlett. As she explores Florence, Lucy realises the constraints of her middle-class upbringing and finds herself attracted to George Emerson, a young man also staying at the Pension Bertolini. Then an impulsive kiss and the confusion that follows prompt a sudden departure from the city. Back in England and engaged to the domineering Cecil Vyse, Lucy meets George again. Caught between social obligation and a suppressed desire for a different life, she must learn how to be true to herself.

"You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you . . ." Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Pertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George. Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Victorian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?A Room with a Viewis a sunny, brilliantly witty comedy of manners.