Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
E. M. Forster
-
Standard Name: Forster, E. M.
Used Form: Edward Morgan Forster
EMF
was a major novelist of the early twentieth century (despite his slender lifetime output of five novels). He was also a short-story writer, an influential critic of fiction, and the author of travel writing, surviving letters, and an opera libretto. He produced a pioneering text of post-colonialism in his final published novel, A Passage to India. After his death he was accorded the status of an activist for the acceptance of homosexual love between men, on the appearance of his polemical, posthumously-published novel Maurice.
Poet Laureate John Masefield
presided over the event, and gave a speech which MK
admired. E. M. Forster
also attended the dinner.
Powell, Violet. The Constant Novelist. W. Heinemann.
127-8
Intertextuality and Influence
Margaret Kennedy
Here Kennedy argues that entertainment and enjoyment are valuable aims for the novel. She maintains that the novelist is, in essence, a storyteller, but the storyteller-novelist has been excluded by a literary society that devalues...
Reception
D. H. Lawrence
Penguin was emboldened to embark on the course of action that led to the trial by the Obscene Publications Act of the previous year, which admitted the defence of literary merit against charges of obscenity...
Education
Q. D. Leavis
QDL
defended her Cambridge
dissertation, which was supervised by I. A. Richards
, with E. M. Forster
as external advisor.
MacKillop, Ian. F.R. Leavis: A Life in Criticism. Allen Lane.
130, 132
“Obituary: Mrs. Q.D. Leavis”. Times, p. 16.
16
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Q. D. Leavis
Here and elsewhere she published on a wide range of authors and literary topics, including Trollope
, Hardy
, Gissing
, Forster
, Orwell
, and Aldous Huxley
; the Anglo-Irish, American, French, Italian, and...
Textual Production
Rose Macaulay
RM
published her first attempt at contemporary literary criticism, and the first critical study of her chosen author, The Writings of E. M. Forster, with the Hogarth Press
.
Bensen, Alice. Rose Macaulay. Twayne.
125
Babington Smith, Constance. Rose Macaulay. Collins.
142
Woolmer, J. Howard, and Mary E. Gaither. A Checklist of the Hogarth Press, 1917-1946. Woolmer/Brotherson.
150
Literary responses
Rose Macaulay
Forster
himself clearly did not like her treatment of him. To Leonard Woolf
, the publisher, he said it was not a good book: tactful, gratifying, and in a sense intelligent, but tamely conceived and...
Literary responses
Lucas Malet
The Times review found the subject-matter of these stories derivative: now of Henry James
, now of E. M. Forster
, now of unnamed murder-mystery writers.She likes a revolver shot, not for any mystery...
Textual Production
Flora Macdonald Mayor
This novel sold reasonably well and FMM
was again lauded by several contemporary critics, including E. M. Forster
, G. B. Stern
, and Rebecca West
.
Williams, Merryn. Six Women Novelists, Macmillan.
45
Keith, Rhonda. British Novelists 1890-1929: Modernists. Editor Staley, Thomas F., Gale Research Company, pp. 169-71.
VM
met Lawrence
through Ivy Low
. Enthusiastic about his writing, she offered to lend him her cottage and to do his typing. During his stay on the Meynells' property, Lawrence introduced Viola to Ottoline Morrell
Literary responses
Naomi Mitchison
NM
was awarded the Palmes de l'Académie Française
for this novel in the year after publication.
Contemporary Authors: New Revision Series. Gale Research.
15: 333
Calder, Jenni. The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison. Virago.
73
Who’s Who. Adam and Charles Black.
She later wrote that this was my only official recognition from anywhere.
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940. Gollancz.
This novel deals rather briefly with the social and commercial success constructed for himself by Gordon Hammond (a self-made builder), then in more detail the flying apart of this apparently stable construction and the re-assemblage...
Reception
Hannah More
From her youth, HM
tended to be regarded as a formidable person. Those describing her reached for martial metaphors. During her lifetime her works aroused intense admiration and opposition. She was one of the twenty-four...
Friends, Associates
E. Nesbit
EN
met E. M. Forster
after writing, the year after its publication, to congratulate him on A Room with a View.
Briggs, Julia. A Woman of Passion: The Life of E. Nesbit, 1858-1924. Hutchinson.
