Where Angels Fear to Tread (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition)
Chaperoned by her young friend Caroline Abbott, free-spirited, recently widowed Lilia Herriton journeys to the Tuscan town of Monteriano where she falls in love with Gino Carella, a dashing villager who is twelve years her junior. The couple marries before Mrs. Herriton, Lilia's snobbish mother-in-law, and her son Philip can prevent what they view as an unsuitable match. Intervention by Mrs. Herriton and Philip in the events that follow lead to horrific consequences. As in Forster's subsequent novels, Where Angels Fear to Tread explores class consciousness and bourgeois obsession with appearances. This Warbler Classics edition includes a detailed biographical timeline.
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Community Reviews
Finally got around to reading this and I am annoyed I didn't sooner. I had always assumed this was a sort of lesser Forster novel - first one, short, not as famous as the others, etc. But this is probably his funniest in the first 2/3 or so. And his saddest in the last 1/3. And in some respects it is his simplest - I felt like the themes were a little more straightforward than the others. I read it in a day - goes very quick. Forster is just so good at poking fun of English priggishness while always maintaining a strong feeling of tolerance. My only complaint is his tendency, and this happens here as well, to have characters that get overly dumbstruck in key moments. It always serves some sort of semi-mystical moral realization, but it can be a little frustrating and perhaps less than realistic. But I highly recommend it. I liked it better than Room with a View and Longest Journey, but not as much as Howards End, Passage to India. (Still need to read Maurice)
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