E M Forster

Pseudonym: Edward Morgan Forster Born: 1 January 1879 Died: 7 June 1970 Gender: Male Occupation: Novelist, Essayist

The British novelist and literary critic E. M. Forster was born on New Year’s Day 1879 in London. His fame rests largely on his novels A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924). Between 1910 and 1913 he wrote Maurice, which was not published until the year after Forster’s death (1971). Forster was a member of the literary ‘Bloomsbury set’, and a perceptive critic. Though he refused permission during his life, enormously popular films were made of his books after his death. Forster refused a knighthood in 1949, but he accepted a Companion of Honour in 1953, eight honorary degrees, and the Order of Merit on his 90th birthday. He died in 1970, having spent the last 25 years of his life as an honorary fellow of King’s College Cambridge.

Image: E M Forster by Edward Gooch © Edward Gooch/Getty Images