frustration when his feelings are unrequited.

1907 The Longest Journey is published.

1908 A Room with a View is published.

1910 While Forster’s literary reputation has been slowly increasing , the publication of Howards End confirms his status as one of England’s most respected young novelists. The same year, he becomes more active in the Bloomsbury group, which includes Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, and Roger Fry. The latter paints a well-known portrait of Forster.

1912 Inspired by his love for Masood, Forster journeys to India for the first time, a trip that inspires his later novel A Passage to India.

1913 Forster writes Maurice, a story of homosexual love; it will not be published until a year after Forster’s death.

1914—1919 With the outbreak of World War I, Forster first takes a job as cataloguer for the National Gallery. Soon after, however, he decides to work for the Red Cross in Alexandria, Egypt. His experience of the war results in a more pessimistic view of the world. He has his first love affair, with a young Egyptian bus conductor, and writes Alexandria: A History and a Guide. James Joyce’s Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow, and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s Poems are published during this period.

1920 Forster contributes numerous articles to several prominent journals, thus embarking on a lifelong career as a journalist.

1921 He once again travels to India and works as private secretary to a maharaja.

1922 T. S. Eliot’s The Wasteland and Joyce’s Ulysses are published.

1924 A Passage to India is published. Generally considered Forster’s masterpiece, the work is to be his final novel.

1930 Forster meets Bob Buckingham, a London policeman, who becomes his companion and dearest friend throughout the remainder of his life.

1934 Elected president of the National Council of Civil Liberties, Forster inspires many politically active young writers, such as W. H. Auden (1907—1973) and Christopher Isherwood (1904—1986).

1939 World War II begins.

1941 Virginia Woolf drowns herself.

1943 Lionel Trilling’s seminal work on Forster, E. M. Forster: A Study, is published.

1945 Forster’s mother dies, and he makes his final trip to India. George Orwell’s Animal Farm appears.

1948 T. S. Eliot receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1950 Bertrand Russell receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.

1951 Forster publishes Two Cheers for Democracy and coauthors, with Eric Crozier, the libretto for Benjamin Britten’s opera Billy Budd, based on Herman Melville’s novel.

1953 Queen Elizabeth II awards Forster membership in the Order of Companions of Honour. Four years earlier he had declined a knighthood.

1960 An opponent of censorship throughout his life, Forster speaks at the obscenity trial concerning D. H. Lawrence’s 1928 novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

1970 E. M. Forster dies in Coventry on June 7.

1972 Forster’s unpublished stories and essays are published in Albergo Empedocle and Other Writings.

Introduction

If you were a young woman, from a relatively well-off family, coming of age in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century, you might think of passing a month or two in Italy, to prepare yourself for a life in polished society by learning a little something about Italian art. You would select a companion, as it would be neither convenient nor seemly to travel alone. An older, unmarried cousin would serve nicely as chaperone. And you would buy a guidebook, either Murray’s or Baedeker’s, the two most popular travel series of the day. Let’s say you opt for Baedeker. You would find, in your new Baedeker, suggestions for itineraries of varying durations, as well as hotels and pensions recommended in each city on your chosen agenda, and you would write to these lodgings to engage rooms. “Passports,” Baedeker informs you, “though not required in Italy, are occasionally useful”—to pick up a registered letter, for example—and for 2 shillings this document is yours, with an added fee if you obtain it through a travel agent such as Thomas Cook. You were planning to visit Cook’s offices anyway, since his coupons, redeemable for food and lodging at many foreign hotels, will no doubt come in handy as well. These preparations made, you pack your suitcase with clothing fit for the season (consulting Baedeker, of course, for an analysis of the Mediterranean climate) and embark, setting off from London for the boat train to Paris, and from there boarding another train that crosses the Alps. Before you arrive in Turin you mean to have mastered the major points of Professor Anton Springer’s “Historical Sketch of Italian Art” helpfully provided in Baedeker’s introduction, but you find yourself distracted from study by the