Books with title Howards End

The book is about three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century: the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the Colonies; the half-German Schlegel siblings (Margaret, Tibby, and Helen), who have much in common with the real-life Bloomsbury Group; and the Basts, a struggling couple in the lower-middle class. The Schlegel sisters try to help the poor Basts and try to make the Wilcoxes less prejudiced.The Schlegels frequently encounter the Wilcoxes. The youngest, Helen, is for a short period intensely attracted to the younger Wilcox brother, Paul; each rejects the other for his or her own reasons. The eldest, Margaret, becomes friends with Paul's mother, Ruth Wilcox. Ruth's most prized personal possession is her family house at Howards End. She wishes that Margaret could live there, as she feels that it might be in good hands with her. Ruth's own husband and children do not value the house and its rich history, because such abstractions, while being very dear to Margaret, are lost to them. As Ruth is terminally ill, and Margaret and her family are about to be evicted from their London home by a developer, Ruth bequeaths the cottage to Margaret in a handwritten note delivered to her husband from the nursing home where she has died, causing great consternation among the Wilcoxes. Mrs Wilcox's widowed husband, Henry, and his children burn the note without telling Margaret about her inheritance. However, over the course of several years, Margaret becomes friends with Henry Wilcox and eventually marries him. The more free-spirited Margaret tries to get Henry to open up more, to little effect. Henry's elder son Charles and his wife try to keep Margaret from taking possession of Howards End.Gradually, Margaret becomes aware of Henry's dismissive attitude towards the lower classes. On Henry's advice, Helen tells Leonard Bast to quit his respectable job as a clerk at an insurance company, because the company stands outside a protective group of companies and thus is vulnerable to failure. A few weeks later, Henry carelessly reverses his opinion, having entirely forgotten about Bast, but it is too late, and Bast has lost his tenuous hold on financial solvency. Bast lives with a troubled, "fallen" woman for whom he feels responsible and whom he eventually marries. Helen continues to try to help young Leonard Bast (perhaps in part out of guilt about having intervened in his life to begin with, as Leonard had not wanted it and Henry had explicitly stated beforehand that he advised no one) but it all goes terribly wrong; because of Bast's wife's connection with Henry, Henry will not countenance helping them. It is later revealed that 10 years previously, as a teenager, she had been Henry's mistress in Cyprus, but he had then carelessly abandoned her, an expatriate English girl on foreign soil with no way to return home. Margaret confronts Henry about his ill-treatment, and he is ashamed of the affair but unrepentant about his harsh treatment of her. Because of Margaret's impending marriage into the Wilcoxes and situations such as these, the Schlegel sisters drift apart somewhat. In a moment of pity for the poor, doomed Bast, Helen has an affair with him. Includes a biography of the Author

NOW A MAJOR BBC ONE DRAMA STARRING HAYLEY ATWELL AND MATTHEW MACFADYENWhen a brief romance between Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox ends badly, their two very different families are brought into collision. The liberal, intellectual Schlegels, who had hoped never to see the capitalist, pragmatic Wilcoxes again, learn that Paul's family are moving from their country estate - Howards End - to a flat just across the road.As the lives of the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes become increasingly entangled, Helen befriends Leonard Bast, a man of lower social status. His presence further inflames the families' political and cultural differences, which are brought to a head in a fatal confrontation at Howards End.Considered by some to be E. M. Forster's finest work Howard's End blends humour and lyricism in this classic exploration of British class and character.

First published in 1910, Howards End is the novel that earned E. M. Forster recognition as a major writer. Soon to be a limited series on Starz.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.

A chance acquaintance brings together the prosperous bourgeois Wilcox family and the clever, cultured, and idealistic Schlegel sisters. As clear-eyed Margaret develops a friendship with Mrs. Wilcox, the impetuous Helen brings into their midst a young bank clerk named Leonard Bast, who lives at the edge of poverty and ruin. When Mrs. Wilcox dies, her family discovers that she wants to leave her country home, Howards End, to Margaret. Thus Forster sets in motion a chain of events that will entangle three different families and brilliantly portrays their aspirations for personal and social harmony.Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879, attended Tonbridge School and went on to King's College, Cambridge in 1897, where he retained a lifelong connection and was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 1946. Forster wrote six novels. Where Angels Fear to Tread '1905' The Longest Journey '1907', A Room with a View '1908' and Howards End '1910' were all published before the First World War. Fourteen years passed before the publication of Forster's most famous work, A Passage to India, in 1924. Maurice, his novel on a homosexual theme, which he competed in 1914, was published posthumously in 1971. His other works include essays, biographies, short stories, plays and a critical work, Aspects of the Novel, as the libretto for Britten's opera Billy Budd. E.M. Forster died in June 1970.