Other editions of book A Room with a View

"The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!" "And a Cockney, besides!" said Lucy, who had been further saddened by the Signora's unexpected accent. "It might be London." She looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that was the only other decoration of the wall.

This hilarious and touching novel embodies Forster's favorite theme — the "undeveloped heart" of the English middle classes. A Room with a View stars Lucy Honeychurch, a charming naif torn between lingering social and sexual Victorian proprieties and her own emotional needs. Forster’s outrageous spinsters, pompous clergymen, and outspoken patriots add wit to what is, in the end, not only a comic masterpiece but a compelling romance and social critique.

A chance encounter… a murder in the Piazza Signoria … an impulsive kiss…and Lucy Honeychurch’s world is forever changed. Torn between settling for a life of acceptable convention or the calling of her true passion, Lucy epitomizes the struggle for individuality and the power and passion of love. A Room with a View is certainly E.M Forster’s most romantic novel, though it also questions the repressed sexuality and closed conventions of the Edwardian society. Set in Italy and England, Forster pivots the easy flowing passion of the Italian culture against the constrictions of late nineteenth century English society and has created a novel of great depth, charm and enchantment that has endured for over a century.

Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant roman-tic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his pas-sionate son George. Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edward-ian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart? Check out our other books at www.dogstailbooks.co.uk

E.M. Forster was an English writer known for writing on the social issues of British society in the early 20th century. For Forster’s achievements in writing and as a humanitarian he was made a member of the Order of Merit in 1969. A Room with a View is a 1908 novel about a young woman in the repressed culture under King Edward VII’s rule. The novel is a romance as well as a critique of English society at the turn of the century.

An Ariel Recording A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of George Emerson, a fellow Britisher, when she sees a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted as she is to him, he seems entirely unsuitable. And his father may even be a Socialist! Back in England she entertains a more acceptable suitor, but finds it stifling. Will she choose convention, or listen to her heart? "An enduring delight. Forster loved to shock his readers by putting characters in circumstances that called forth their independence and individuality. Written in 1908, A ROOM WITH A VIEW is one of Forster's earliest and most celebrated works." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)

E. M. Forster's celebrated social comedy explores romantic intrigue and prim propriety among a colorful cast of Edwardian characters. Lucy Honeychurch, a young English woman traveling in Italy with her stuffy chaperone aunt, finds herself constrained by the claustrophobic influence of her British guardians and attracted to the free-spirited George Emerson, whose family's radical politics make him entirely unsuitable. Sharing a spontaneous moment of passion with him in the Italian countryside, 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 final choice between convention and passion.