In Aspects of the Novel, a remarkable collection of lectures Forster delivered at Cambridge in 1927 (by which time, in fact,he had already completed and published all the novels he.would finish and see to print in his lifetime), Forster asks his audience to try to imagine all writers in one room; writing their novels at once, He implies that time and circumstance are only what they are, peripheral; incidental, hOt,central to an idiosyncratic genius, or--a word Forster would have preferred--to character. "All through-history;' he says in the first of those extraordinary lectures (which caused F. R Leavis to walk out in disgust), "writers while writing have felt more or less the same We may say that History develops, Art stands still."

...

A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch,faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man,George Emerson--who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist--Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires.Back in England, she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor and soon realizes she must make a startling decision that will determine the course of her future: she is forced to choose between convention and passion.

The enduring delight of this tale of romantic intrigue is rooted in Forster's colorful characters, including outrageous spinsters, pompous clergymen, and outspoken patriots. Written in 1908, A Room with a View is one of E. M.Forster's earliest and most celebrated works.

Introduction by Mona Simpson

       PART 1

1. The Bertolini

2. In Santa Croce with No Baedeker

3. Music, Violets, and the Letter "S"

4. Fourth Chapter

5. Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing

6. The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert

Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor

Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy

Honeychurch Drive Out-in Carriages to See a View;

Italians Drive Them

7. They Return

       PART 2

8. Mediaeval

9. Lucy as a Work of Art

10. Cecil as a Humourist

11. In Mrs. Vyse's Well-Appointed Flat

12. Twelfth Chapter

13. How Miss Bartlett's Boiler Was SoTiresome

14. How Lucy Faced the External Situation Bravely

15. The Disaster Within

16. Lying to George

17. Lying to Cecil

18. Lying to Mr. Beebe, Mrs. Honeychurch, Freddy,-and the Servants

19. Lying to Mr. Emerson

20. The End of the Middle Ages