1879: Edward Morgan Forster was born on January 1 to
Alice Clara née Whichelo (1855-1945) and architect Edward
Morgan Llewellyn Forster (1847-1880) who died soon after his son was
born.
1887: On the death of his paternal great-aunt,
Marianne Thornton, he inherited £8,000 which was enough to live on and
enabled him to become a writer.
1897: After attending Tonbridge School as a boy, he
went to King's College, Cambridgeto study history, philosophy, and
literature.
1901: Became a member of the Apostles(formally named the
Cambridge Conversazione Society), a discussion society; received his
Bachelor of Arts.
1903: Returned to England from a year spent travelling
in Europe and taught Latin at the Working Men's College in London. He also joined with his friend, G. M. Trevelyan, to establish the Independent Review, a journal that
supported the more progressive wing of the Liberal Party.
1904: His first of many sketches, essays, and stories
was printed in the Independent Review in 1904.
1905: Published Where Angels Fear to Treadset in Tuscany; spent
some months in Germany as tutor to the children of the Countess von
Arnim.
1906: Established with his mother in Weybridge, he
became tutor to Syed Ross Masood, a striking and colonial Indian Muslim patriot, for
whom Forster developed an intense affection.
1907: Published the novel The Longest Journeywhose Rickie Elliot is
one of his most autobiographical characters.
1908: Published the novel A Room with a
View a romance set in Italy that contrasted with Edwardian
England's society and mores.
1910: Published the novel Howards
End that established
Forster as a writer of importance and began to attend the Bloomsbury Group.
1911: Published the short story The Celestial
Omnibus (and other stories).
1912-1913: Visited India and began to work on A
Passage To India.
1914: Published The Celestial Omnibus; the First World War broke out and he became
a conscientious objector.
1915-18: Was engaged in hospital work for the
Red Cross in Alexandria, Egypt
where he met a seventeen-year-old tram conductor, Mohammed el-Adl (1920-1922) with whom he fell in love.
1919: Returned to England where he worked as literary
editor for the left-wing newspaper, the Daily Herald.
1922: Spent a second spell in India as private
secretary to the maharajah of the state of Dewas Senior; published
Alexandria: A History
and a Guide, a work
inspired by the period of his life in Alexandria
1923: A collection of literary and historical sketches
written in Egypt, Pharos
and Pharillon (A Novelist's
Sketchbook of Alexandria Through the Ages) was published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf
1924: Published A Passage to India thanks to
his well-acquaintance with the conflict between the British Raj and the
Indian Independence Movement, his last novel to reach international
acclaim and his most famous and widely-translated work, for which he won
the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. The conflicting worlds which Forster
treats in this novel are those of the colonial English and the native
Indian.
1927: Invited to deliver the “Clark Lectures” at
Cambridge's Trinity College. Result was an in-depth analysis of the
basis of novels. These lectures were published in the same year as
Aspects of the Novel.
1928: Published the short story The Eternal
Moment and other stories a volume of pre-1914 short stories.
1930s and 1940s: Became a successful broadcaster on
BBC Radio and a public figure
associated with the British Humanist Association.
1934: Gave his full support to the formation of the
National Council of Civil Liberties and became its first president in
1934.
1936: Published Abinger Harvest, essays named after the village in Surrey in which
Forster inherited a house on 1924.
1937: Awarded a Benson Medal.
1938: Alexandria: A History and a Guide was
reprinted in revised form .
1945: Wrote the film script A Diary for
Timothy.
1946: Elected an honorary fellow of King's College, Cambridge in January and lived for the most part in
the college, doing relatively little.
1947: Published Collected Short
Stories
1949: Declined a knighthood
1949-1951: Worked with Eric Crozier to write the
libretto to Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd, based on
Herman Melville's 1924 novel of the same name.
1951: Published Two Cheers for Democracy that contains essays, articles and broadcasts written
by E. M. Forster between 1936 and 1951.
1953: Published The Hill of
Devi a portrait of India through letters and commentary;
was awarded with membership in the Order of Companions of
Honour
1969: Made a member of the Order
of Merit.
1970: Died in Coventry on 7 June at the age of
91, at the home of the Buckinghams.
1971: The novel Maurice with a homosexual theme which he circulated privately
(written in 1913–14) was published posthumously.
1972: A collection of short stories written between
approximately between 1903 and 1960 The Life to Come and other
stories was published posthumously.
2003: The novel Arctic Summer (an incomplete fragment, written in 1912–13) was
published posthumously.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Morgan_Forster
visited in November, 2008.
http://www.online-literature.com/forster/
visited in November, 2008.
http://emforster.de/hypertext/template.php3?t=life
visited in November, 2008.
http://kirjasto.sci.fi/forster.htm
visited in November, 2008.
http://musicandmeaning.com/forster/
visited in November, 2008.
http://www.geocities.com/soho/exhibit/6747/
visited in November, 2008.
