Howards End

Chapter One

ONE MAY as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister.
Howards End,
Tuesday.

Dearest Meg,
It isn't going to be what we expected. It is old and little, and altogether delightful-red brick. We can scarcely pack in as it is, and the dear knows what will happen when Paul (younger son) arrives tomorrow. From hall you go right or left into dining-room or drawing-room. Hall itself is practically a room. You open another door in it, and there are the stairs going up in a sort of tunnel to the first-floor. Three bed-rooms in a row there, and three attics in a row above. That isn't all the house really, but it's all that one notices-nine windows as you look up from the front garden.
Then there's a very big wych-elm-to the left as you look up-leaning a little over the house, and standing on the boundary between the garden and meadow. I quite love that tree already. Also ordinary elms, oaks-no nastier than ordinary oaks-pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine. No silver birches, though. However, I must get on to my host and hostess. I only wanted to show that it isn't the least what we expected. Why did we settle that their house would be all gables and wiggles, and their garden all gamboge-coloured paths? I believe simply because we associate them with expensive hotels-Mrs. Wilcox trailing in beautiful dresses down long corridors, Mr. Wilcox bullying porters, etc. We females are that unjust.

I shall be back Saturday; will let you know train later. They are as angry as I am that you did not come too; really Tibby is too tiresome, he starts a new mortal disease every month. How could he have got hay fever in London? and even if he could, it seems hard that you should give up a visit to hear a schoolboy sneeze. Tell him that Charles Wilcox (the son who is here) has hay fever too, but he's brave, and gets quite cross when we inquire after it. Men like the Wilcoxes would do Tibby a power of good. But you won't agree, and I'd better change the

Autoren-Porträt von EdwardMorgan Forster

EdwardMorgan Forster wurde 1871 in Londongeboren. Nach dem College reiste er nach Griechenland und Italien, und begannnach seiner Rückkehr zu schreiben. 1905 verbringt er mehrere Monate inDeutschland, und sein erster Roman wird veröffentlicht. "Zimmer mit Aussicht","Howards End" und "Maurice" sind seine bekanntestenRomane, die auch verfilmt wurden. 1912/13 reist Forster durch Indien, seinRoman "Auf der Suche nach Indien" erscheint 1924. Dies ist sein letzter Roman.Die nächsten 46 Jahre seines Lebens bis zu seinem Tod im Jahre 1970 widmet eranderen Dingen. 

With a new Introduction by James Ivory
Commentary by Virginia Woolf, Lionel Trilling, Malcolm Bradbury, and Joseph Epstein

"Howards End is a classic English novel . . . superb and wholly cherishable . . . one that admirers have no trouble reading over and over again," said Alfred Kazin.

First published in 1910, Howards End is the novel that earned E. M. Forster recognition as a major writer. At its heart lie two families-the wealthy and business-minded Wilcoxes and the cultured and idealistic Schlegels. When the beautiful and independent Helen Schlegel begins an impetuous affair with the ardent Paul Wilcox, a series of events is sparked-some very funny, some very tragic-that results in a dispute over who will inherit Howards End, the Wilcoxes' charming country home. As much about the clash between individual wills as the clash between the sexes and the classes, Howards End is a novel whose central tenet, "Only connect," remains a powerful prescription for modern life.

"Howards End is undoubtedly Forster's masterpiece; it develops to their full the themes and attitudes of [his] early books and throws back upon them a new and enhancing light," wrote the critic Lionel Trilling.