A Room with a View (Penguin Classics)

By E. M. Forster

E.M. Forster's beloved novel of forbidden love, culture clash, and the confines of Edwardian society   Visiting Florence with her prim and proper cousin Charlotte as a chaperone, Lucy Honeychurch meets the unconventional, lower-class Mr. Emerson and his son, George. Upon her return to England, Lucy becomes engaged to the supercilious Cecil Vyse, but she finds herself increasingly torn between the expectations of the world in which she moves and the passionate yearnings of her heart. More than a love story, A Room with a View (1908) is a penetrating social comedy and a brilliant study of contrasts - in values, social class, and cultural perspectives - and the ingenuity of fate. In her illuminating introduction, Forster biographer Wendy Moffat delves into the little-known details of his life before and during the writing of A Room with a View, and explores the way the enigmatic author’s queer eye found comedy in the clash between English manners and the unsettling modern world, encouraging his reader to recognize and overcome their prejudice through humor. This edition also contains new suggestions for further reading by Moffat and explanatory notes by Malcolm Bradbury. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Published Aug 1, 2000

240 pages

Average rating: 6.48

98 RATINGS

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7/10 stars
Rereading some classics. It is too bad that the first time I read this I was too young to appreciate the social commentary. Unless you were a very observant teen, it deserves a rereading in adulthood.
Sorcha Ogle
6/10 stars
shortish book full of silly mis understandings and English manners disguised as politeness (especially in their disguise of the English Abroad) that gets Lucy engaged to Cecil, only to be confronted with George. George, the awkward Englishman she met on holiday in Florence, who kissed her in the violets, and who she's in love with really but it takes her ages, and a return to England, to realise she's in love
Sophie Davies
2/10 stars
According to the reviews people seem find this a charming WASP comedy-drama. I found it to be très ennuyeux.
Idontwantto
6/10 stars
I couldn’t stay awake listening to the online version which is why I gave a 6 rating. I wasn’t able to get a hard copy to read myself, but I was able to watch the movie with some of my favourite actors, that I give a 9 rating.
abookwanderer
6/10 stars
3.5 stars This little comedy started off slow. I almost gave up, but halfway through it caught my attention. A sweet love story with charming characters.