Product Description

Forster's social comedy is a witty observation of the English middle classes as they holiday abroad in Florence. One of these tourists is Lucy Honeychurch, a young girl whose heart is awakened by her experiences in Italy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14956 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879. He wrote six novels, four of which appeared before the First World War, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and Howard’s End (1910). An interval of fourteen years elapsed before he published A Passage to India. Maurice, his novel on a homosexual theme, finished in 1914, was published posthumously in 1971. Malcolm Bradbury was a novelist, critic, television dramatist and Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is author of the novels Eating People is Wrong (1959); Stepping Westward (1965); The History Man (1975); Rates of Exchange (1983) which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Cuts: A Very Short Novel (1987); and Doctor Criminale (1992). His critical works include The Modern American Novel (1984; revised edition, 1992); No, Not Bloomsbury (essays, 1987); The Modern world: Ten Great Writers (1988); From Puritanism to Post-modernism: A History of American Literature (with Richard Ruland, 1991).

Customer Reviews

Spectacular Reading by Joanna David
It's hard to know which to praise more, E. M. Forester's witty comedy of manners, or Joanna David's nuanced and entertaining reading of the book. Clearly, the combination of the two is that rare marriage of great writing brought to life by a talented actress. If you only listen to one audio book this year, you would do well to make it this one.

Forester writes about an England that is long gone . . . but not forgotten. The middle class has its wits and its respectability to defend itself from the vagaries of a challenging world. Naturally, the middle class prefers its own company and so-called manners are merely an excuse to keep everyone else at bay. The absurdity of this way of living is highlighted when Forester takes a young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch (don't you love that name?), off for a trip to Florence in the company of her maiden cousin, Charlotte, who also serves as chaperone.

A variety of English tourists are gathered in a small Italian pensione in Florence when Lucy and Charlotte arrive. Both women had asked for and been promised rooms with a view. Upon arrival, they got just the opposite. Complaining over dinner about this, two men, a father and his son, immediately offer to exchange rooms. This offer breaks most rules of good manners at the time, and the women turn down the kind, well-intentioned offer. Thus far can manners cause one to go against one's best interests. During their time in Florence, the women find themselves confounded and redirected by the honest helpfulness of the Emerson men. But the familiarity raises dangerous challenges for Lucy, and she flees their company.

The rest of the story looks at the consequences of the flight and focuses on Lucy's attempts to find a way of life that makes sense for her . . . rather than being a slave to social convention.

Describing the story's plot doesn't do justice to the witty satires and ironic comments about the pompously respectable. It's a delicious romp, and Ms. David makes it all the more so.

If you are like me, you'll find yourself racing to the end to find out what Lucy does with herself.

Room with a View
This is a fantastic book about a girl who is torn between love and duty - between truth and hypocrisy. Set in florence and england at the turn of the century it is less a love story than a psychological study and a comedy-of-manners. Endlessly engaging and with Forsters characteristicaly beautiful prose, this is a must-read for fans of classic literature. To my thinking, this is a better book by far than all of its nineteenth and eighteenth century contemporaries (including Austen, whom i think overated)

One is given to think, as the novel closes, that the book marks the border between the old world of English manners and social rules and the new free-thinking twentieth century.

Read it! Read it now!

one of the most beautiful love stories of the 20th century
A Room with a View was by E.M. Forster himself considered 'rather slight'. He did not do himself justice. One cannot agree with him: it is the kind of novel that reverbarates in one's mind - it has the stature of a major classic. As the story unfolds the major character learns to acknowledge her true feelings. A delicate story with beautiful philosophical insight, witty ironical social comedy and a touch of deep warmth and romance.