UK Reading Experience Database - Browse Reader Readings Forster Edward Morgan

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Edward Morgan Forster

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Jane Austen : [novels]

E. M. Forster, "Jane Austen," in Abinger Harvest (1924): 'She is my favourite author! I read and re-read, the mouth open and the mind closed.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henry James : What Maisie Knew

' ... in Egypt during the Great War [E. M.] Forster applied himself to read [Henry] James. Struggling with What Maisie Knew (1897), he rather thought that "she is my very limit ..."'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Rudyard and C. R. L. Kipling and Fletcher : A School History of England

'In 1911 E. M. Forster read "with mingled joy and disgust" "A School History of England", which Kipling and C. R. L. Fletcher had just published ...'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Rutherford Crockett : The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion

E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 13 February 1898: 'Have you read Crockett's new book, the Adventures of Sir Toady Lion? It is splendid: a child's story, & reminds me of the times I used to have with Ansell & Frankie [neighbours].'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jane Austen : Northanger Abbey

E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster, 3 March 1898: 'I will tell how I spent my prize money. I got Browning's Poems in two volumes, two volumes of Jebb's Sophocles, Kugler's History of Italian Painting in two volumes, and last but not least Jane Austen in 10 volumes. It is such a lovely edition, in green cloth with beautiful print and paper, and each volume is very light to hold [...] Each novel goes into two volumes, except Persuasion & Northanger Abbey, who only take one. I am reading the latter again, & I am more delighted with it than ever.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Edward Morgan Forster : "The Greek Feeling for Nature"

E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster, 3 March 1898: 'I have just read a paper to the Classical Society on "The Greek Feeling for Nature"; everyone sat upon it very much, and disagreed with everything I said.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

: Punch

E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster, 7 May 1899: 'Thank you very much [...] for the Punches & Antiquaries which I much enjoy. I see from "Nature Notes" that yesterday a party were going for a ramble and then coming to tea with you. I hope it was a success'.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

: The Antiquary: A Magazine Devoted to the Study of the Past

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

: Nature Notes

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Jabez Bunting Dimbleby :

E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, ?summer 1899: 'I hear much of Mr Dimbleby, and have tried to read his books. I can't think how Maimie [i.e. Mary Aylward, family friend] is taken in. Scattered scraps of information such as "in 1903 there will be a second Flood: 'one of the continents' (!) will sink below the sea. In 1910 the world will probably be consumed in the tail of a comet, &tc." '"Dear me," says Maimie, "to think that we shall probably be alive to see it."'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henry James : Portrait of a Lady

E. M. Forster to George Barger, 27 July 1899: 'I have had a good time in Scotland & here [Northumberland] & go home next week. I have just read James' "A portrait of a Lady" [sic]. It is very wonderful but there's something wrong with him or me: he is not as George Meredith. Now I'm reading the Forest Lovers by Maurice Hewlett, and am a little bored though there is lots of delightful writing.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Maurice Hewlett : The Forest Lovers: A Romance

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

George Bernard Shaw : plays

E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 5 November 1899: 'I have been reading Bernard Shaw's plays. Wonderfully clever & amusing, but they make me feel bad inside.'

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: 'The Child's first Lesebuch'

E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 9 April 1905: 'At 2.45 I and Herr Steinweg [German tutor employed by the Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin] [...] go a walk [...] We return at 4.0, and have tea in his room, during which he reads Keats to me or I the Child's first Lesebuch to him, correcting each other.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Butler : Erewhon; or, Over the Range

E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 9 April 1905: 'Elizabeth [employer] has lent me Erewhon which I am enjoying.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Walter Pater : Marius the Epicurean

E. M. Forster to Arthur Cole, 11 April 1905: 'Have you read Erewhon? Now I'm at Marius the Epicurean.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jane Austen : Emma

E. M. Forster to Alice Clara Forster, 2 July 1905: 'In the evening I read Elizabeth [employer] "Emma". Liebeth [employer's daughter and Forster's pupil] has just drawn me doing it on the black board.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jane Austen : Northanger Abbey

E. M. Forster to Arthur Cole, 7 July 1905, following satirical account of English travellers met the previous day: 'These then are my thoughts [...] My books are equally stimulating: Wilhelm Tell -- which is thought mighty fine -- and Northanger Abbey, which I read aloud to Elizabeth [employer] in the evenings. Also Thais, but that I am only beginning.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Anatole France : Thais

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Joris-Karl Huysmans : La Cathedrale

E. M. Forster to Edward Joseph Dent, 3 Ocotber 1906: 'You would hardly know me, so violently has Chartres gothicised me [...] In or outside Chartres you can find every human passion. Huysman[s], amid much nonsense, does make this point -- that the middle ages did not shirk things [...] His is an interesting book -- I forget if you set me onto it: at all events you first told me his name.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Edward Garnett : A Censored Play: The Breaking Point

E. M. Forster to Edward Garnett, 28 October 1907: 'You said I might write to you about The Breaking Point. I think it wonderful, and unlike anything I have read before. One receives images from some books, and yours suggested a vase in the hands of a clumsy person which will be dropped sooner or later, but when, one cannot tell. I had this image even before I came to the broken glass in the first act.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Hugh Walpole : The Wooden Horse / 'The House of the Trojans'

E. M. Forster to Hugh Walpole, 19 July 1908: 'I can say without preamble that it's good -- the theme is ample and fills the book properly, the development holds one [...] The interest does persist to the very end. I did put the book down, because I went to bed, but I finished it first thing in the morning. You ought to get it taken all right [comments further]'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Ernest B. Havell : Indian Sculpture and Painting ... with an Explanation of Their Motives and Ideals

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 10 February 1910: 'I left off the last [letter to Darling] saying that I was going to tell you something special in the next, and now for the life of me I can't remember what it is. It's a comment on our civilisation. This reminds me: of my story being read to the Rajah [...] I don't know why it should make me smile, but it does [...] Perhaps he would think it odd to read a book about Indian Art, as I have been doing -- by Havell. A little petulant in tone, but fascinating.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Fyodor Dostoevsky : The Brothers Karamazov

E. M. Forster to Ottoline Morrell, 2 April 1910: 'I am reading Les Freres Karamazov, but am so far a little disappointed. It seems sketchy, though I have no notion what I mean by that useful word; not "insincere" by any means.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Edward Gibbon : Autobiography

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 15 April 1910: 'Just now I am enthralled by Gibbon's Autobiography. There are passages in it that are more than "correct", and on the border line of beauty. What a giant he is -- greatest historian & greatest [...] name of the 18th century [italics]I[end italics] say; whether it is his greatness or his remoteness that makes his goings on with religion so queer I do not know.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Niccolo Manucci : Storia do Mogor; or Mogul India, 1653-1708

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 29 June 1910: 'I am reading Manucci's "Storia do Mogor" -- a most entertaining book [...] He is so amusing & vivid about the Indian character that I can't believe it's all lies, though it is said to be partly.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Matthew Arnold :

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 12 August 1910: 'Do you get any time for reading? I am taking huge chunks of Mat Arnold. he's not as good as he thinks, but better than I thought. His central fault is prudishness -- I don't use the word in its narrow sense, but as implying a general dislike to all warmth. He thinks warmth either vulgar or hysterical.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Sir Alfred C. Lyall : British Dominion in India

E. M. Forster to Syed Ross Masood, mid-January 1911: 'I am reading Lyall's hand book about the English in India -- the sort of thing I required [for preparation for travels in India]. Also I have failed to read another of Alice Parin's [sic] novels called Idolatry. The other I tried was good, but this is about missionaries & wicked Hindus and most tiresome.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Alice Perrin : Idolatry

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Alice Perrin :

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Sir Alfred C. Lyall : Asiatic Studies: Religious and Social

'E[dward]M[organ]F[orster] was reading, as well, Lyall's Asiatic Studies: Religious and Social (1882) and G. F. I. Graham, The Life and Works of Syed Ahmed Khan (1909).'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

G. F. I. Graham : The Life and Works of Syed Ahmed Khan

'E[dward]M[organ]F[orster] was reading, as well, Lyall's Asiatic Studies: Religious and Social (1882) and G. F. I. Graham, The Life and Works of Syed Ahmed Khan (1909).'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Rudyard Kipling : Puck of Pook's Hill

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 29 July 1911: 'I have been reading Kipling's child's history of England with mingled joy and disgust. It's a fine conception, but oh is it necessary to build character on a psychological untruth? In other words to teach the young citizen that he is absolutely unlike the young German or the young Bashahari -- that foreigners are envious and treacherous, Englishmen, through some freak of God, never --? Kipling and all that school know it's an untruth at the bottom of their hearts -- as untrue as it is unloveable. But, for the sake of patriotism, they lie. It is despairing [...] 'I couldn't on the other hand read the New Machiavelli, finding it too fretful and bumptious, and very inartistic, but must try again -- the more so as Wells, in an article in Le Temps has mentioned me among the authors qui meritent etre mieux connus en France [...] The best novels I have come across in the past year are Rosalind Murray's The Leading Note [...] and Wedgwood's Shadow of a Titan -- unfortunately written in an affected and unreadable style.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

H. G. Wells : The New Machiavelli

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Rosalind Murray : The Leading Note

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

A. Felix Wedgwood : The Shadow of a Titan

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Valentine Chiriol : Indian Unrest

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 29 July 1911: 'When you have a spare day [...] do send me some Indian papers -- the Pioneer, and if possible something Nationalist & semi-seditious. I have read Chiriol's book, and am anxious to taste the Journalism direct [...] I can't get hold of anything over here.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Thomas Hardy : novels

E. M. Forster to Jessica Darling, 24 September 1911: 'It's something to be near fine country [Simla] [...] Whether it is something to have the novels of Hardy with you, I doubt. He is a poet, and the few novels of his I've read were unsatisfying. However serious the edifice, the ground plan of it is farce. He's a poet [...] and only comes to full splendour in his poems. In them his narrow view of human, and especially female, character doesn't matter, and Wessex and Destiny at last stand clear out of the mist.'

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Forrest Reid : The Bracknels

E. M. Forster to Forrest Reid, 31 January 1912: 'I have read The Bracknels, and wish to thank you for it [...] it does help one to distinguish between the superficial and the real, and to some minds there is something exhilarating in this [...] The book has moved me a good deal'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

George Moore : Ave

E. M. Forster to Jessica Darling, 6 February 1912: 'Before I get off books, I will put down the names of one or two that I have enjoyed lately. George Moore, Ave, William James, Memories & Studies, G. L. Strachey, Landmarks in French Literature (price 1/-, and oh so good), J. T. Sheppard, Greek Tragedy (also 1/-; Malcolm [Darling] knows him), Foemina, L'Ame des Anglais, Andre Chevrillon, Dans L'Inde, Forrest Reid, The Bracknels, Lascelles Abercrombie, Emblems of Love, Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

G. L. Strachey : Landmarks in French Literature

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

J. T. Sheppard : Greek Tragedy

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Mme Augustine Bulteau : L'Ame des Anglais

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Andre Chevrillon : Dans L'Inde

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Forrest Reid : The Bracknels

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Lascelles Abercrombie : Emblems of Love

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Edith Wharton : Ethan Frome

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Max Beerbohm : Zuleika Dobson

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Miss Wright : poem

E. M. Forster to S. R. Masood, 8 March 1912: 'Have just dined with the Morisons -- a very interesting evening, and I had a long talk alone with Miss Wright about her writings. We got on very well; at least I felt we did. She showed me that dream poem that we had at Tesserete. It is altered [...] and I think very good indeed.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

William James : Memories and Studies

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 12 March 1912: 'I seem to have read several good books -- William James's Memories and Studies, Walter de la Mare's The Return -- supernatural, profound, and fine --: The Reward of Virtue by Amber Reeves [...] Foemina is interesting on L'Ame des Anglais, though she theorises too much.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Walter de la Mare : The Return

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Amber Reeves : The Reward of Virtue

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Leonard Woolf : story

E. M. Forster to Leonard Woolf, before 24 May 1912: 'Dear Woolf 'It's a good story. Try the English Review -- I know of no other magazine that will pay for erections and excrement. Suggestions. New title. Shorten the Introduction and simplify its style [...] 'I enjoyed the story more the second reading, but still feel the touch of "scold" about it, that often goads me in Kipling [...] your man who has done & felt things is a little too anxious to give those who haven't a bad time.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Richard Barham Middleton : 'The Ghost Ship'

E. M. Forster to Forrest Reid, 19 June 1912: 'The day before yesterday I read The Ghost Ship by R. Middleton [...] I thought it very good, and it added to the other qualities I want in a supernatural story, the quality of good nature. The others in the same book did not look as interesting.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Forrest Reid : Following Darkness

E. M. Forster to Forrest Reid, 13 December 1912: 'I have read Following Darkness again, and am happier than I can tell you to be connected with it [as dedicatee]. Initials [in dedication] are of no importance -- it is the knowledge that I have helped in it. Besides, your books have a knack of opening in my hands when daily life has gone wrong [goes on to comment further on text]'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Sir William Sleeman : Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster, 19 February 1913: 'Do you know Sleeman's Rambles & Recollections of an Indian Official? It is a charming book to read in, but the best chapter, about a Suttee on the Nerbudda, you would perhaps be inclined to skip. I have also been reading The Private Life of an Eastern King by E. W. Knighton who was librarian to one of the Kings of Oudh, a very entertaining and intersting little book, and it rings true. It is certainly out of print, but may be in the L[ondon] L[ibrary].'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Adam Cramb : Germany and England

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914: 'I am not a Pro-German [...] I have read the White Paper, and Cramb, and some Bernhardi, and I am sure we could not have kept out of this war.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

General Friedrich Adam Julius von Bernhardi :

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914: 'I am not a Pro-German [...] I have read the White Paper, and Cramb, and some Bernhardi, and I am sure we could not have kept out of this war.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: 'White Paper'

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914: 'I am not a Pro-German [...] I have read the White Paper, and Cramb, and some Bernhardi, and I am sure we could not have kept out of this war.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

: notice on wartime safety measures

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914: 'Just now I sit in the N[ational]. G[allery]. having studied a notice that instructs me to "attack" a petrol bomb with sand instead of water. How am I to know whether it is a petrol bomb? But it will probably spare me the fatigue of considering.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: ?poster ('notice')

Johann Christian Friedrich Holderlin : Hyperion

E. M. Forster to Edward Joseph Dent, 6 March 1915: 'I have not read Platen yet [...] German's a labour. I liked Holderlin's Hyperion -- I wish someone would translate it. Have you read The White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence? If not, do not, because you cannot, but read one chapter in it called A poem of friendship, which is most beautiful. The whole book is the queerest product of subconsciousness that I have yet struck -- he has not a glimmering from first to last of what he's up to.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

D. H. Lawrence : The White Peacock

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: The New Statesman

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 2 August 1915: 'I read (and sometimes write) the New Statesman [...] also the Morning Post [...] I enclose from it this jolly letter of Balfour's: it seems to me distinctly on the spot. Reventlow's was too much of a bore to send.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

: The Morning Post

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

James Arthur Balfour : 'What Our Fleet Has Done'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

Count Ernst von Reventlow : 'A Year of Naval Warfare'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

Bridget McLagan (i.e. Mary Borden Turner) : 'Bombardment'

E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 August 1916: 'I saw from the Hospital Lists that an officer from Lovats Scouts was here, and went round at once to get news of Jermyn [Moorsom]. But he was still in England [...] My only other link with our joint past is the Hot Stuff article in last month's English Review, which was provided by Mrs Turner. In fairness I must add that it contained more stuff than heat, stuff curiously disposed into metrical lengths. Quite three pages of the prose ran into the rhythm of Hiawatha. "There before us lay the village. Members of the etat-major walked around Celestine's garret." I cannot make out what she is up to, but then I never could. Some sort of effect is obviously intended.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Bridget McLagan (i.e. Mary Borden Turner) : 'Rousbrugge'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

: 'Missionary magazine'

E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster (aunt), 25 August 1916: 'Your welcome letter to Darkest Africa has been followed by a "real" Missionary magazine, which I have also enjoyed. Work here [as Red Cross officer tracing missing soldiers] is quieter again, which leaves me time for reading, and while you were at H. J.'s Portrait of a Lady I was tackling his latter and tougher end in the person of What Maisie Knew. I haven't [italics]quite[end italics] got through her yet, but I think I shall: she is my very limit -- beyond her lies The Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors and other impossibles. I don't think James could have helped his later manner -- is [sic] a natural development, not a pose. All that one can understand of him seems so genuine, that what one can't understand is likely to be genuine also.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Henry James : What Maisie Knew

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Milton :

E. M. Forster to Laura Mary Forster (aunt), 1 January 1917: 'For the last hour I have occupied myself with copying extracts into my "War Anthology" [...] I have put in "your" Milton passage and next to it a passage from Pater -- that in which he describes the longings of Marcus Aurelius for the Ideal City [...] (The passage is in Marius the Epicurean -- at the end of the chapter called Urbs Beata) [...] It is somehow very tranquil to copy out passages such as these, and the very labour of writing seems to bring one nearer to those who wrote them in the past.'

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Walter Pater : Marius the Epicurean

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Robert Bridges, ed. : [possibly] The Spirit of Man: An Anthology in English & French from the Philosophers and Poets made by the POet Laureate in 1915 & dedicated by gracious permission to His Majesty the King

E. M. Forster to Wilson Plant, 14 February 1917: 'Not many books here [...] I have been enjoying Bridges and sticking, as I always do, in a Zola.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Emil Zola :

E. M. Forster to Wilson Plant, 14 February 1917: 'Not many books here [...] I have been enjoying Bridges and sticking, as I always do, in a Zola.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

D. H. Lawrence : The Rainbow

E. M. Forster to Wilson Plant, 14 February 1917: 'Like you I am a great admirer of D. H. Lawrence [...] The Rainbow I picked up in a book shop during the brief period it was for sale and thought it looked dull. How I wish I had bought it now.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Edward Gibbon :

E. M. Forster to Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, 5 May 1917: 'I am anxious to re-read a little history and see how its solemn arrangement of "movements", which, while they bored me, used to impress, look now, in the light of actual experience. I have only tried Gibbon, whom nothing can disintegrate, but expect that everyone and everything else will shatter into dust.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: The Feet of the Young Men

E. M. Forster to Florence Barger,30 September 1917: 'Thanks for The Feet of the Young Men, but I wish I hadn't docked 2/- from your £ for it: an undistinguished little book [...] I enjoy books and such thoughts as progress from them greatly, and am pleased to find I can understand a little of Spinoza and that he is every bit as fine as I had suspected. He holds my intellect at its utmost strain'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Benedict Spinoza : Ethics

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henry James : The Middle Years

E. M. Forster to Robert Trevelyan, 29 January 1918: 'I am already deep in The Piddle Years [sic]. I never find Henry James difficult to understand, though it [italics]is[end italics] difficult to throw off the interests of one's larger life, and flatten oneself -- flat flatter flattest -- to crawl down his slots.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jean Baptiste Racine :

E. M. Forster to Robert Trevelyan, 29 January 1918: 'I have been reading Racine and Claudel.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Paul Claudel :

E. M. Forster to Robert Trevelyan, 29 January 1918: 'I have been reading Racine and Claudel.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Robert Trevelyan : Translations from Lucretius

E. M. Forster to Robert Trevelyan, 29 January 1918: 'Lucretius has come -- I like him very much.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Henry James : The Sense of the Past

E. M. Forster to Siegfried Sassoon, 2 May 1918: 'Have just finished The Sense of the Past, and though it's so obscure -- find it much nearer the work of other writers than is the rest of the later James. He is really interested in his subject [time travel] as well as in his treatment of it. And a topping subject.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Robert Graves :

E. M. Forster to Siegfried Sassoon, 3 August 1918: 'Re the poets you mention I have read some of them both. I liked Graves. Nichols not so much.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols :

E. M. Forster to Siegfried Sassoon, 3 August 1918: 'Re the poets you mention I have read some of them both. I liked Graves. Nichols not so much.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Robert Trevelyan :

E. M. Forster to Robert Trevelyan, 23 August 1918: 'Thank you for your poem on Confuscius [sic]. It amused me very much.'

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Forrest Reid : 'Kenneth'

E. M. Forster to Forrest Reid, 10 January 1919: 'Some of your stories I have read before, but I am enjoying and admiring them all. "Kenneth" made me laugh so nicely. The "Trial of Witches" [...] seemed to me a most powerful [reminder] of the past.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Forrest Reid : 'The Trial of Witches'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Laurence Sterne : The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

[following transcribed passage on 'gravity,' from Tristram Shandy I.ii] 'Insight vitiated by instinct of self defence -- probably typical of Sterne, whom I have begun to read. How did he discover the art of leaving out what he wanted to say? And why was it lost again until our own time. Can nothing liberate English fiction from conscientiousness? S. clearly a g[rea]t writer and his philosophy of life almost good and quite good in quotations: "Look at little me" spoils it in the bulk. 'But (now finishing T.S.): what character drawing! [goes on to comment further]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jonathan Swift :

'More I reflect on the novel the higher I place it: attempts to read Swift, Miss Burney, Smollett, place it on a pinnacle.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Frances Burney :

'More I reflect on the novel the higher I place it: attempts to read Swift, Miss Burney, Smollett, place it on a pinnacle.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Tobias Smollett :

'More I reflect on the novel the higher I place it: attempts to read Swift, Miss Burney, Smollett, place it on a pinnacle.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Daniel Defoe : Moll Flanders

In Commonplace Book entries made during 1926, E. M. Forster comments upon, and transcribes passages from, Defoe's Moll Flanders, remarking upon the work as 'A puzzling book -- gynomorphic, [with] not one stitch of the man-made', and discussing aspects including character and form.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Percy Lubbock : The Craft of Fiction

'[Percy Lubbock] thinks ["The Craft of Fiction" -- a sensitive yet poor spirited book] that the aim of a novel should be capable of being put into a phrase, "ten words that reveal its unity", and so boggles at War and Peace, though he "duly" recognises its vitality [...] Must I read him through?'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henry Fielding : Tom Jones

'Impossible to read a Meredith as simply and fairly as a Fielding, with one eye fixed on the author's interests and the other on his achievement. [read Tom Jones & Evan Harrington when I had chicken pox, 19, and felt this strongly]'.

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

George Meredith : Evan Harrington

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Vanbrugh : The Provok'd Wife

Among entries made in 1926 in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book is a passage from Vanbrugh, The Provok'd Wife III.i (opening '[italics]Virtue[end italics], alas, is no more like the thing that is called so than 'tis like vice itself').

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe

'Robinson Crusoe an English book -- and only the English could have accepted it as adult literature: comforted by feeling that the life of adventure could be led by a man duller than themselves. No gaiety wit or invention [...] Boy scout manual. Unlike Moll or Roxana or Selkirk himself, Crusoe never develops or modifies. As much bored as I was 30 years ago. Its only literary merit is the well conceived crescendo of the savages. Historically important, no doubt, and the parent of other insincerities, such as Treasure Island [...] I shan't read Part II. [goes on to quote from, and comment upon, text further]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jonathan Swift : Gulliver's Travels

'Gulliver is Robinson Crusoe in Fairy Land [...] '[quotes] He said the [italics]Struldbrugs[end italics] commonly acted like Mortals until about thirty Years old, after which, by Degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected -- etc. -- -- 'but I will transcribe this passage into my anthology, under Old Age'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Richardson : Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady

'Clarissa Harlowe. Have read 1/3 of [...] Certainly I am bored, but the book is not tedious through repetition -- the endless variety and modulations are not in themselves interesting enough [...] Granted her premises about copulation and relations, Cl. deduces with delicacy and truth. Within her conventions, she is sound. She is tragic and charming. Rich[ardson]. had a tragic mind [quotes passages] [...] 'The book raises the question of subject-matter. Within its limits it is great. But what limits!'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henry James : The Ambassadors

Among texts discussed and quoted from at length in 1926 Commonplace Book of E. M. Forster is Henry James, The Ambassadors, with comments including 'Pattern exquisitely woven,' and 'However hard you shake his sentences, no banality falls out.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Norman Douglas : D. H. Lawrence and Maurice Magnus: A Plea for Better Manners

Among texts discussed and quoted from in 1926 Commonplace Book of E. M. Forster is Norman Douglas, D. H. Lawrence and Maurice Magnus: A Plea for Better Manners (1924).

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Herman Melville : Billy Budd

Among texts discussed and quoted from in 1926 Commonplace Book of E. M. Forster is Herman Melville, Billy Budd, with remarks including 'Billy Budd [...] has goodness, of the glowing aggressive sort which cannot exist unless it has evil to consume'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Charles Dickens : Great Expectations

'Great Expectations. Alliance between atmosphere and plot (the convicts) make it more solid and satisfactory than anything else of D[ickens]. known to me. Very fine writing occasionally ([italics]end of Pt.I[end italics].) [...] Occasional hints not developed -- e.g. [...] Jagger's [sic] character [italics]does[end italics] nothing, Herbert Pocket's has to be revised. But all the defects are trivial, and the course of events is both natural and exciting [goes on to comment further, and to quote at length from conclusion to 'the first stage of Pip's Expectations']'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Sylvia Townsend Warner : Lolly Willowes

Remarks in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book of 1926 include 'Nearly all novels go off at the end,' with examples including Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes ('how silly the book becomes when the witchcraft starts, how worse than silly when it culminates').

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

David Garnett : A Man in the Zoo

Remarks in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book of 1926 include 'Nearly all novels go off at the end,' with further comments including: 'Bunny's books are so good because they [italics]don't[end italics] go off. A Man at the Zoo [sic] fails at the end because the author daren't put the lady into the cage as well as the man. But Fox and Sailor strengthen steadily.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

David Garnett : Lady into Fox

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

David Garnett : The Sailor's Return

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Oliver Goldsmith : The Vicar of Wakefield

Remarks in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book of 1926 include 'Nearly all novels go off at the end,' with further comments including 'V. of W. gets out of his [depth] 1/2 way through -- after the painting of the family group with Mrs Primrose as Venus all the grace and wit vanishes [...] the happy ending to the tragedy makes all worse than ever.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Aristotle : Poetics

Entries in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1926) include passage on character in tragedy from Aristotle, Poetics.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Max Beerbohm : Letter to Lytton Strachey

Transcribed in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1927): 'What is principle to me? I am a Pitt. -- Lady Hester Stanhope. Copyright? What is copyright to me? I am a Beerbohm -- Max' Forster notes underneath: '[Letter from Max to Lytton]'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Letter

John Dryden : Epistles

'An hour won. Dryden's Epistles read for pleasure September night windy, dark, warm, and I have read the Epistles of Dryden [sic] 'Reading these Epistles which have no connection with my work and little with my ideas, have given me a happy sense of my own leisure. Who has the necessary time and vacancy of mind to read Dryden's Epistles for pleasure in 1927? or to copy out extracts from them into a Commonplace Book? Or to write out more often than is necessary the words: Dryden, Epistles, Dryden's Epistles? No one but me and perhaps Siegfried Sassoon.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Thomas Mann : The Magic Mountain

In Commonplace Book for 1927 E. F. Forster transcribes passage on time from vol. I, ch.iv of Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, accompanying this with comments including: 'Thomas Mann a bore, but from a sense of literary duty rather than personally.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

J. B. Priestley : article on E. M. Forster

'Elusiveness. Shut up always in the same carcase, one is puzzled by this charge, which is brought against me not only by an ill-bred-and-natured journalist Priestley in today's D.N. but by friendly and sensitive Leonard Woolf. Is it just that I am different to most people, or that, knowing the difference, I have developed to conceal it?'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

H. E. Wortham : Oscar Browning

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book for 1927 include Oscar Browning's reflections, quoted in H. E. Wortham's biography of him, on the potential of the human mind, and the chances governing realisation, or non-realisation of this ('I have been drawn to think rather of the tens who have failed than of the units who have succeeded, and of the ore that lies buried in our social strata rather than of the bright coins which circulate from hand to hand').

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: 'I love me' (song lyric)

Transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book for 1927: 'I love me, I love me, I'm wild about myself, I love me, I love me, my picture's on the shelf, You may not think I look so good but me thinks I'm just fine It's grand when I look in my eye and knows that I'm all mine. 'Oh I love me and I love me and my love doesn't bore Day by day in every way I love me more and more I takes me to a quiet place I puts my arms around my waist If I gets fresh I slap my face, I'm wild about myself. '[noted by Forster underneath] -- From a song book seen in a pub at Castle Acre.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henrik Ibsen : Peer Gynt

Under heading 'Peer Gynt': 'The main ideas of this great and bitter poem become clearer at this last hasty reading (3-1-28) though my former criticism stands [i.e. that it is a poem pretending to be a sermon [...]] [goes on to comment further on text]'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henrik Ibsen : Peer Gynt

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

E. M. Forster : short stories

'Peace has been lost on the earth and only lives outside it, in places where my imagination has not been trained to follow [...] [literature] has committed itself too deeply to the worship of vegetation. 'Re-reading my old short stories have [sic] forced the above into my mind. It was much easier to write when I believed that Wessex was waiting to return, and for the new belief I haven't been properly trained.'

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Francois Mauriac : Le Desert de l'Amour

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1928) include reflections on lovers' perceptions from Francois Mauriac, Le Desert de l'Amour (1925), and one line, 'La nuit etait vouee au vent et a la lune,' from Mauriac's La Pharisienne, added by Forster in 1942.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Francois Mauriac : La Pharisienne

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

A. S. Eddington : Stars and Atoms

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1928) include remarks on spatial relations between man, atoms, and stars, and on the effects of temperature on matter, from A. S. Eddington, Stars and Atoms (1927).

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Thomas Deloney : The Gentle Craft part II

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1928) include character Margaret's remarks on married life from Thomas Deloney, The Gentle Craft (Pt. II).

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Horace Walpole : Letter to George Montagu, 13 November 1760

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1929) include section from Horace Walpole's letter of 13 November 1760 to George Montagu, describing the funeral of George II.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

A. S. Eddington : The Nature of the Physical World

'Eddington (5.1.29). After reading his Nature of the Physical World as carefully as I can, the new ideas become more possible to me and therefore less wonderful. They degenerate into mathematical symbols which we are content to use without understanding.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

A. N. Whitehead : Science and the Modern World

Transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1929): 'It does not mattter what men say in words so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts. But until this has occurred, words do not count. [Whitehead, Science & the Modern World.]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Ernest Hubert Lewis Schwarz : The Kalahari and its Native Races

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1929) include anecdotes on pigmies from Ernest Hubert Lewis Schwarz, The Kalahari and its Native Races (1928) p.153, p.155.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

T. S. Eliot : 'Tradition and the Individual Talent'

' "Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality." This [T. S. Eliot, Sacred Wood, p52] seems sound, but "emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him" is surely nonsense. He recovers in "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But of course only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from those things."'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Anton Chekhov : 'Uprooted'

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1929-30) include descriptions and reflections on vagrants from Chekhov's story 'Uprooted.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henry Vaughan : 'Quickness'

'Raw February Afternoon 2-30 [...] Reading Vaughan [quotes two stanzas beginning 'Thou art a moon-like toil'] [...] Reading F. R. Lucas also [quotes seven lines beginning with 'Your quiet altar after all was best']'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

F. L. Lucas : 'The Graces'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Cyril Connolly :

'Raw February Afternoon 2-30 [...] Thought, after reading little Cyril Conolly [sic], of the new generation knocking at the door, and wondered whether it is more than a set of knuckle bones.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Andre Maurois : Byron

'L'Heroisme consiste a ne pas permettre au corps de renier les impudences de l'esprit 'runs an epigram of Maurois which bowled me at the first reading; then, as so often, I thought "not really worth writing down." He is only saying that [italics]Byron[end italics] acted up to his theories. But he has written a very fine biography in which one always feels secure over the facts and has not to depend on the flashes of intuition cultivated by the Strachey school.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Cowper Powys : Wolf Solent

'Have been trying to read Solent Wolf [sic] again -- duck-weed and spittle unrelieved [...] No wonder that those Hardyesque fungi, the Powys [brothers T. F. and John Cowper], have never got anywhere. Patiently advertising their own decay and searching the hedgerows for simples. Can't go to bed with anyone, only talk and think it over, don't know that lust and tenderness bring relief.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Alfred Tennyson : In Memoriam

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include three stanzas (beginning 'Old warder of these buried bones') from Tennyson, In Memoriam (1870 edition).

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Alfred Tennyson : 'A Farewell'

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include Tennyson, 'A Farewell'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

A. E. Housman : Poem LII ('Far in a western brookland')

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include Poem LII ('Far in a western brookland') of A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Pierre Corneille : Trois Discours

Texts discussed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include Corneille, Trois Discours ('Sur le poeme dramatique'; 'Sur la tragedie'; 'Sur les trois unites').

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Dryden : The Conquest of Granada

Texts discussed, and quoted from at length, in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include The Conquest of Granada, and its prefatory Essay of Heroic Plays.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Dryden : An Essay of Heroic Plays

Texts discussed, and quoted from at length, in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930) include The Conquest of Granada, and its prefatory Essay of Heroic Plays.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Pierre Corneille : Rodogune

'Rodogune 1646. Despite indistinct and I believe undistinguished diction, this is the most moving and exciting play of Corneille I've struck [...] Antiochus and Seleucus are devoted to each other, and there it is; their love for Rod[[ogune]. and the commands of Cleopatre doesn't contend with their devotion'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Dryden : Preface, The Maiden Queen

Texts discussed and quoted from in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include John Dryden, Preface to The Maiden Queen, regarding which Forster comments: 'Interesting but not sound. It's true that a writer knows whether he has carried out his aims, but he may be biassed in favour of his model, all the same'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Johnson : Rasselas

Texts discussed and quoted from at length in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, to which Forster refers as 'a charming and important (why decried as dull?) composition'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Johnson : Life of [Richard] Savage

Texts discussed and quoted from at length in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include Samuel Johnson, Life of Savage, to which Forster refers as 'Good tempered account of a trying friend [...] S[avage]. reminds me of what I've just heard of Cyril Conolly [sic]. Lord Tyrconnel= Logan Pearsall Smith.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Johnson : Preface to Dictionary

Texts discussed and quoted from in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include Samuel Johnson, Preface to the English Dictionary and Plan (addressed to Chesterfield).

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Johnson : Plan [for Dictionary]

Texts discussed and quoted from in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include Samuel Johnson, Preface to the English Dictionary and Plan (addressed to Chesterfield).

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Johnson : remarks on Othello

[under heading 'Johnson on Othello]: 'Consulted original ed. to see if Raleigh misses out much. Naturally J. is stupider than he suggests: but was not stupid.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Walter Raleigh, ed. : Johnson on Shakespare

[under heading 'Johnson on Othello]: 'Consulted original ed. to see if Raleigh misses out much. Naturally J. is stupider than he suggests: but was not stupid.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jonathan Swift : The Battle of the Books

[under heading 'Battle of the Books']: 'How I dislike Swift, and how is it possible to take this ill tempered ill informed stuff [...] seriously as criticism, even as destructive criticism? On [sic] a piece with his other works -- Jerries emptied with the same conscientiousness, same elaborate presentation of blame as praise. I feel, (as usual except perhaps in Laputa) a void behind the much advertised bitterness. I feel he never grows up [goes on to draw detailed comparison with ch. 3 of A Tale of a Tub].'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jonathan Swift : A Tale of a Tub

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Nicolas Boileau : L'Art Poetique

Texts on which detailed notes made in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1930) include Boileau, L'Art Poetique, comments on which include: 'He realises that experience is valuable to a writer and that the heart of the reader must be touched: but his conceptions of experience and the heart are jejune.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Dante Alighieri : De Vulgari Eloquentia

'Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia 1309 (?) which I'd never read and now only have in translation, must have been written excitedly, and while Div[ina]. Com[media] was forming in his mind. What a pity it only deals with Canzone! [goes on to comment further on passages noted from text]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

George Bernard Shaw : Saint Joan

'Shaw's St Joan and Joyce's Ulysses into which I looked today (8-11-30) made me ashamed of my own writing. They have something to say, but I am only paring away insincerities.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

James Joyce : Ulysses

'Shaw's St Joan and Joyce's Ulysses into which I looked today (8-11-30) made me ashamed of my own writing. They have something to say, but I am only paring away insincerities.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

J. A. Symonds :

[entered in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1930), underneath quoted passage opening 'I wonder what morality is, whether eternal justice exists, immutable right & wrong, or whether law and custom rule the world of humanity, evolved for social convenience from primal savagery'] 'J. A. Symonds: but whence? copied into this book off an odd scrap of paper, and into an odd space in the book.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown, Copied from earlier transcription in Forster's hand.

J. A. Symonds :

Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Henry James : The Letters of Henry James (vol.I)

Texts quoted from at length in E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1931) include Henry James, Letters, passages from which cover topics including the writings of Pater, Kipling and Hardy.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Aubrey : The Scandal and Credulities of John Aubrey

'Aubrey in young John Collier's book of selections has reminded me of the value of the quaint and the charming: they may bring the past when properly juxtaposed. How many anecdotes and conversations I've let die -- half a civilisation already'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Voltaire : Des Singularites de la Nature

Texts from which passages quoted in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book, 1931-32, include remarks on animal genitalia in Voltaire, Des Singularites de la Nature (incorporating comments such as 'Ce mecanisme est bien admirable; mais la sensation que la nature a jointe a ce mecanisme est plus admirable encore').

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Charles F. Richardson : 'Critical Introduction'

Passages quoted in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book, 1932, include this remark from Charles F. Richardson 'Critical Introduction' to The Complete Poems of Edgar Allan Poe: 'It may be added that Poe stands supreme, even in the only morally pure national literature the world has ever seen, in the absolute chastity of his every word.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

William Shakespeare : Romeo and Juliet

Under heading 'Invocation of Poetry by Rhetoric': 'A mass of dead words is set spinning, then kindles. [italics]Or[end italics]: one's taste and critical faculties, thoroughly roused at first, are lulled unaccountably, and one heaves "gorgeous" er "splendid". 'Instances in Romeo & Juliet [Yet now I cannot find them, though they suggested this note and I have been looking at the play most of the evening] [goes on to comment further on topic]'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Indu Rakshit :

Passages transcribed at length in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1932) include reflections by Indu Rakshit on 'the representation of the feminine' in contemporary Western and Indian art.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Voltaire : Histoire de Charles XII (Book 3)

Passages transcribed at length in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1932) include extract from Voltaire, Charles XII Book 3 (on the execution of Jean Reginald Patkul, ambassador of the Czar), accompanied by comment: 'Each time I read the magnificent passage above -- at last transcribed -- I am struck by the economy of the [italics]irony[end italics] and even of the [italics]pathos[end italics]. Yet the whole passage vibrates with both. There is a sort of religious grandeur -- cruelty and cowardice are both noted without contempt. 'When will there be such writing again, or even the leisure to transcribe it? Voltaire and I do speak the same language, vast though be the difference in our vocabularies, we are both civilised [...] We belong to the cultured interlude which came between the fall of barbarism and the rise of universal "education" [...] We believe in reason, in pity, and in not always coming out right -- that is to say I hope to be logical and compassionate'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Christopher Isherwood : Mr Norris Changes Trains

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1935) include (from chapter 15 of Christopher Isherwood, Mr Norris Changes Trains): 'Remorse is not for the elderly. When it comes to them it is not purging or uplifting, but merely degrading and wretched, like a bladder disease.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Ernest Hemingway : A Farewell to Arms

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1935) include reflections on associations of placenames and other words, and on effects of 'the world' upon strong and weak characters, in Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Herman Melville : Mardi

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1935-6) include two quotations from Herman Melville, Mardi.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Herman Melville : Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, ?1 June 1851

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1935-6) include quotation from letter of Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne: ' "I stand for the heart. To the dogs with the head! The reason the mass of men fear God and at bottom dislike him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy him all brain like a watch' ".

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Norman Douglas : Together

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1935-6) include quotation from Norman Douglas, Together, opening: 'How many avenues of delight are closed to the mere moralist or immoralist who knows nothing of things extra-human; who remains absorbed in mankind and its half-dozen motives of conduct, so unstable yet forever the same, which we all fathomed before we were twenty!'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Sophocles : Oedipus Tyrannus

'A clean table and proper lighting make me solider, I find. Tonight I have swept all the rubbish off my board and read some of Oedipus Tyrannus with only the lamp and two vases in sight. One vase has four roses, the other a spray of oak leaves: the acorns when the sun falls on them, have a blue bloom. [Midnight 5-9-36]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Thomas Malory : Le Morte D'Arthur

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include part of Le Morte D'Arthur, XX.3, opening: ' "So upon Trinity Sunday at night King Arthur dreamed a womderful dream [...] that to him there seemed he sat upon a chaflet [platform] in a chair, and the chair was fast to a wheel "'. Underneath, Forster notes: 'Copied, with modernised spelling, just as King George VI returned from his coronation to his palace.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: Book of Zechariah

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include Zechariah I.ii: 'And they answered the Angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees and said: "We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still and is at rest."' Underneath, Forster notes: 'Accidental poetry. The spurt begins v.8 with "I saw by night" and is magic and meaningless.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henrik Ibsen : passages from The Correspondence of Henrik Ibsen

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include five extracts from letters of Ibsen, noted as 'Copied from some notes made for lecturing on I[bsen]'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Abraham Cowley : Essay no. 5 ('The Garden')

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include extract from Cowley's Essay No. 5 ('The Garden'), dedicated to John Evelyn, and opening: 'I never had any other Desire so strong, and so like to Covetousness as that one which I have had always. That I might be Master at last of a small House and a large Garden, with very modern Conveniencies joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my Life to the Culture of them and the study of Nature.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Bunyan : The Life and Death of Mr Badman

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include the description of the death of Mr Badman's wife (opening 'Now, said she, I am going to rest for my sorrows, my sighs, my tears, my mournings, and complaints') from chapter 16 of John Bunyan, The Life and Death of Mr Badman.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jean de la Bruyere : 'Du Coeur'

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include reflections upon benefits of reading both devotional and 'gallant' books, and the heart's ability to '[reconcile contrary things]' [source ed's translation] from La Bruyere's essay 'Du Coeur'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Bunyan : The Life and Death of Mr Badman

Passages transcribed at length into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937) include the description of the suicide of John Cox, from chapter 19 of John Bunyan's Life and Death of Mr Badman.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jean Freville, trans. and ed. : Sur la Litterature et l'Art: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

Passages transcribed at length into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1937-38) include extracts on the art and literature of different historical periods from Les Grands Textes deu Marxism, sur litterature et l'Art, anthology edited by Jean Freville; topics and authors covered include the Renaissance; comedy; poetry; Goethe; Shakespeare; Carlyle, and Disraeli. Following transcriptions, Forster notes: 'I read this anthology to find material for the Ivory Tower.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Adolf Hitler : address on national art

Passages transcribed at length into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1938) include Hitler's 18 July 1937 'address at Munich' (denouncing 'degenerate' art, and demanding an ideally pure and timeless national art for Germany), which Forster notes that he originally read as research for his article 'The Ivory Tower'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

V. I. Lenin and Josef Stalin : (excerpted) writings on literature

Passages transcribed at length into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1938) include 'Lenin-cum-Stalin on literature. Being a 2nd instalment of Les Grands Textes du Marxism.' Forster's accompanying comments include: 'Leninism less cultured than Marxism -- i.e. less interested in the creation and enjoyment of works of art. But it does not openly denounce individualism or recommend corporate emotion, as the Nazis do. There seems no reason why Communism, if left in peace, should not become civilised.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Ruskin : The Stones of Venice (vol 1 chapter 1)

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1938) include Ruskin's remarks on Claude and the Poussins as 'weak men' with 'no serious influence on the general mind.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

General Sir Robert Thomas Wilson : History of the British Expedition to Egypt

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1938) include General R. T. Wilson's account of five British sailors' purchase of a woman sold at auction by Arabs.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

William Gifford : Memoir of Ben Jonson

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster, Commonplace Book (1938) include criticisms of practices of editors of Renaissance-period texts, by William Gifford in his Memoir of Ben Jonson; Forster also notes that 'Lord Macaulay has written "Very Good" in the margin of the copy at Wallington'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Benjamin Farington : Science and Politics in the Ancient World

Under heading 'Early Greek Science. -- And Lucretius': 'Farington (Science and Politics in the Ancient World) thinks that Ionia observed and experimented freely; that Science became conditioned by politics [...] 'Now I am reading Cornford (From Religion to Philosophy). I doubt whether Farington has. For Cornford proves that Ionian Science was conditioned by religion. This, though less exciting, is probable. 'I find these early speculations useful in clearing my own mind, and helping it to see how it has been twisted. And Farington recalls me to my proper job [...] I ought to think a little more, and not to slop about being diffident or charming.'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

F. M. Cornford : From Religion to Philosophy

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Newton : Sermon IV ('The Lord Coming to His Temple')

Passages transcribed at length into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1938) include 'The Rev. John Newton on the Messiah' (Forster's heading) noted underneath by Forster as 'From a Sermon preached at St Mary's Woolnoth in 1784'; passage about how mortals distract themselves, by means including setting of scriptures to music, from proper awareness of God's impending judgement of them.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Alexander Pope : The Dunciad (books I and II)

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1938-40) include three quotations from the Dunciad (addresses to and by the personification of 'Dulness', beginning in I.12, I.311, II.34, and II.83). These accompanied by comments opening: 'How undull! and how gay are Pope's ordures besides Swift's,' and continuing: 'Bk II [...] is grand and frolicsome, and belongs to that happy moment when aristocracy catches hold of ordinary experiences and common life, and plunges, retaining its own proper form.'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Arthur Hugh Clough : Dipsychus

'Dispsychus -- read after many hesitations -- is not clear what world it opposes to the spirit: the world of action or the world of ambition greed & snobbery. So its effect is fumbly [...] Don't expect to pursue Clough beyond the anthology-pieces.'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Lord Acton : A Lecture on the Study of History

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

William Wordsworth : The Prelude

Passages quoted in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1940) include remarks on value of cultural works for successive generations of civilised people from Lord Acton's Lecture on the Study of History ('A speech of Antigone, a single sentence of Socrates [...] come nearer to our lives than the ancestral wisdom of barbarians who fed their swine on the Hercynian acorns'). Forster responds with comment that 'Lord Acton is right, but [...] He forgot that that most people do not respond to culture or intellectual honesty [...] he appears to this generation as an old man lecturung in a cap and gown,' having also noted 'This afternoon (29-2-40) I was at Bishops Cross, where new born lambs were dying in the cold, and Hughie Waterson, a Nazi by temperament, was trying to save them [...] Him the ancestral wisdom inspired.' Forster goes on to quote, for comparison, eight lines from The Prelude XII (opening 'I could no more / Trust the elevation which had made me one / With the great family which still survives [...]', and three lines from Wordsworth's 'Sonnet on Napoleon' (beginning with 'The great events with which old story rings'), continuing with remark: 'I glanced at these two books of the Prelude to see whether Wordsworth's Imagination and Taste had been impaired in the same way as my own.'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

William Wordsworth : 'Sonnet on Napoleon'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Madame de Sevigne : Letters

Passages quoted at length in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1940) include three extracts from the Letters of Madame de Sevigne, the first of which, Forster notes underneath it, 'is not the one I wanted to copy out,' continuing, 'Her orthodox, gaiety, and caution are much better combined in the following,' and announcing the third with 'And still better -- gaiety dominating'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

R. W. Ketton-Cremer : Horace Walpole: A Biography

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1940-41) under heading 'Eighteenth Centuriana' include reported last words of Sir Robert Walpole and Sir Thomas Mann, from R. W. Ketton-Cremer's Horace Walpole: A Biography.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Voltaire : Zaide

[under heading Voltaire's Zaide] 'The warmth of feeling between Z. and Orasmane, the easiness of the action (except in the frigid double-recognition scene) suprised me, and as I cannot appreciate the badness of the French as Lytton [?Strachey] could; I enjoyed the play and should like to see it acted.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Ernest Hemingway : For Whom the Bell Tolls

Passages transcribed into E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include remarks on bigotry (opening 'Bigotry is an odd thing') from chapter 13 of Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1941).

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

William Wordsworth : Sonnets of the Imagination XLII

Transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941), under heading 'Wordsworth on Machinery': '"Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar To the Mind's gaining a prophetic sense Of future change, that point of vision, whence May be discovered what in soul you are." '[Sonnets of the Imagination XLII]' This followed by remarks: 'Right! The problem of 1941 has not been better put. And it could be so well put only by someone who had not all the facts.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

George Eliot : Silas Marner

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include speech about Christmas by Dolly Winthrop in chapter 10 of George Eliot, Silas Marner, which followed by remark: 'G. E. shows her greatness in this minor interview. Who else in her century or in any could present simplicity and goodness without patronage [italics]end[end italics] without self-abasement? Atmosphere all through both thick and unforced; buried buried are we in the depths of a deeper England than Hardy's. [comments further on text]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Francois de Malherbe : 'Consolation a Monsieur du Perier, sur la Mort de sa Fille'

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include stanza 7 of Malherbe, 'Consolation a Monsieur du Perier, sur la Mort de sa Fille' (1607, followed by remark: 'If I admire this, do I like French poetry? I do admire it. And, mythology lost, what will become of poetry? Mythology gave a stiffening to the fabric.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Francois de Malherbe : 'Pour le Roi, allant chatier la Rebellion des Rochelois'

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include stanza 32 of Malherbe, 'Pour le Roi, allant chatier la Rebellion des Rochelois' (1628), followed by remark: 'If I admire this, do I like French poetry? I do admire it. And, mythology lost, what will become of poetry? Mythology gave a stiffening to the fabric.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Gerald Heard : The Creed of Christ: An Interpretation of the Lord's Prayer

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1941) include remark that '[Christ] was the Son of Man, because, though greater than any of his generation, he was younger, he belonged, by the creative power which he allowed to keep flowing in renewal through him, to a generation of men, who even now after two thousand years, have yet to be born.' Forster then notes: 'Thus does Gerald Heard spice up his urge to prayer in The Creed of Christ. Have written (20-9-41) a letter to him which I ought to have transcribed. Like other priests, he so emphasises the perils of mis-prayer that one feels it was wise never to have started.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: 'The Disappointment of God'

'The Disappointment of God. 'The Times, in an article with this title, announced that though God is certainly disappointed by the state of the world we must not go so far as to suppose that he is surprised. -- Very funny effect, especially in its paginal context. Deducing Gods personality must be a fascinating game. But the world has disappointed [italics]me[end italics] so much that I scarcely smiled.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

Elizabeth Gaskell : Sylvia's Lovers

'Sylvia's Lovers 1863, though I have not finished it, has been an eye-opener after the twitterings of Cranford. The sensuousness of the sailor, the characterisation, without fuss, of S's parents, the amusing deterioration of S's friends after marriage. And the wisdom in this account of old-fashioned country mentality: [quotes passage from chapter 7 of text, opening 'Taken as a general rule, it may be said that few knew what manner of men they were,' before commenting further on text]'.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

H. A. L. Fisher : A History of Europe

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1942) include remarks by H. A. L. Fisher beginning: 'Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Ruskin : 'The Pleasures of Deed' (Lecture II in series 'The Pleasures of England')

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1942) include Ruskin's remark, from a Slade Lecture (with five commas omitted from original): 'Every mutiny every danger every terror and every crime occurring under or paralysing our Indian legislation, arises directly out of our national desire to live out of the loot of India.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Paul-Louis Courier : 'Petition pour les Villageois que l'on empeche de Danser' (1822)

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1942) include remark by Courier, opening 'Les gendarmes sont multiplies en France bien plus encore que les violons quoique moins necessaires pour la danse.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Paul Valery :

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1942) include remark by Paul Valery opening 'L'Histoire est le produit le plus dangereux que la chimie de l'intellect ait elabore.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

St Augustine : De Civitate Dei

Passages transcribed (and translated) in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1942) include remarks on conquerors' impositions of their languages upon new subject peoples in De Civitate Dei.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Thomas Hodgkin : Italy and Her Invaders 376-476 (vol. I)

'That detestable father [italics]St Jerome[end italics], thus reacts to the Fall of Rome:-- '[...] When the refugees [...] began to reach Palestine: "I was long silent, knowing that it was the time for tears. Since to relieve them all was impossible, we joined our lamentations with theirs [...]" [...] Virgil's "Urbas antiqua ruit, multos dominata per annos" quoted, which I myself was to read 1500 [sic] later, after seeing the Docks on fire from my roof in Chiswick. '[Extracted from Hodgkin. Jerome has to leave Rome for the desert because he found the ladies too charming there.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Virgil : Aeneid (Book II)

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

George Eliot : Middlemarch

From Diary of E. M. Forster, 8 September 1940: 'London Burning! I watched this event from my Chiswick flat last night with disgust and indignation, but with no intensity though the spectacle was superb, I thought It is nothing like the burning of Troy. Yet the Surrey Docks were ablaze, at the back with towers and spires outlines [sic] against them, greenish yellow searchlights swept the sky in futile agony [...] Now and then tracts of the horizon flashed a ghastly electric green. Or the fire ahead burst up as I hoped it was dying down. "Oh!" I cried once faintly, then returned to my bed and read Middlemarch.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

W. E. H. Lecky : History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne

[Following notes on 'squabble' between SS. Jerome and Augustine] 'Extracted from ch. iv of Lecky's "Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne", interesting, ill-indexed, strong on the Egyptian anchorites.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

St Augustine : 'On Marriage and Concupiscence'

'St Augustine, Some scattered notes. 'Have glanced at his work On Marriage & Concupiscence, part of his attack on the Pelagians. What he thinks is wrong in copulation is not the semen but the pleasure attending its emission, and he thinks the pleasure wrong because people are ashamed to be seen doing it [...] Elsewhere, he says that the time for giving in marriage was B.C., and the time for abstaining from it A.D., but he does not urge the extinction of the human race, and hopes that husbands and wives will continue to go ahead, with as little pleasure as possible, until the establishment of the City of God. I find it difficult to follow, in anyone so intelligent, such opinions, and think they may have been induced by the unintelligent asceticism of his age; by the knowledge that thousands of stupid men were sitting in the desert all along Africa.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Michaud : article on Pelagius

[Following notes on life and thought of Pelagius] 'From a good article in the Biographie Universelle.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Neville Figgis : The Political Aspects of St Augustine's City of God

[Following heading 'St Augustine'] 'Some questions raised rather than solved in Figges' [sic] "Political Aspects of the City of God" [goes on to transcribe extracts and add own notes and queries].'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

St Jerome : Select Letters of St Jerome

Texts quoted from and discussed at length in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1942) include St Jerome, Letters ('Loeb'), with closing remarks: 'Now farewell St Jerome for ever, but I must not ignore some similarities between us: we both decline to concentrate on the political catastrophe. Your obsession with virginity helps you, for it is in danger whether there's peace or war.' [in notes, Forster expresses disapprobation for Jerome's attitudes to sexuality in particular, describing Letter 117 (p.136; on female modesty) as 'terrifying in its blindness and vigour']

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

St Basil : Letters (vol.II)

'St Basil (329-379) [...] is a Father easily disposed of, and a glance at the second volume of letters in Loeb shall suffice [goes on to make detailed notes and transcriptions from text].'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

F. A. Wright : A History of Later Greek Literature

'Forster's material on the Sophists and others is drawn from part II ("Byzantium A.D. 313-565") of F. A. Wright's A History of Later Greek Literature from the Death of Alexandria in 323 B.C. to the Death of Justinian in 565 A.D. (Routledge, 1932).'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Socrates of Constantinople : Ecclesiastical History

[following heading Sophocles of Constantinople] 'I have run through his Ecclesiastical History with amusement and without contempt [...] Bk V ch. 18 on the purity campaign of Theodosius is very funny. There was a machine which lowered visitors to a brothel into a bakehouse, where they worked for the rest of their lives [....] Funny too is the bishop who trod on another bishop's foot, with the result that it festered and had to be amputated. Bk VI ch 19.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

E. H. Carr : Michael Bakunin

[following heading 'Bakunin (1814-1876)] 'Reading Carr's pitiless and ungenerous account of him, I am often carried outside it to contemplate the endless senseless torturing of Europe; the same places occur in the 18th cent, as in the 5th, and people are still being killed and thwarted, and beautiful and useful objects being destroyed. [makes further notes on text]'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Marcel Proust : Le Temps Retrouve

Texts from which passages transcribed at length in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1942-1943) include Marcel Proust, Le Temps Retrouve.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Marcel Proust : Du Cote de chez Swann

'In his diary (1 March 1922) Forster recorded, while on the boat returning from India, his early impressions of Proust: "Bought Du Cote de Chez Swann at Marseilles and note how cleverly Proust uses his memories and experiences to illustrate his state of mind [...] His work impresses me by its weight and length, and sometimes touches me by its truth to my feelings."'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Charles Darwin : The Voyage of the Beagle

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1943) include reflections on Australia from Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

A. P. Wavell : Allenby: Soldier and Statesman

Passages transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1943) include anecdote about Boer prisoners and their guards being found asleep together, with Allenby's remark 'that will do more to end this stupid war than anything else,' from A. P. Wavell, Allenby: Soldier and Statesman.

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jean Bruller : Le Silence de la Mer

'La Silence de la Mer by "Vercors" (Schlumberger?) was given me by Raymond Mortimer yesterday and read without much admiration though with plenty of sympathy: published secretly under the Nazis in France. Read also too slow a story by Giono of the coming of Pan: it quickens at the end where human beings and animals dance together, with regrettable results [...] Read too in Illusions Perdues [...] and in Gide's Journal [...] Gide aroused my envy by reading, reading, but if I kept a journal I too should appear to have read, read a lot.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Jean Giono : 'Prelude de Pan'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Honore de Balzac : Illusions perdues

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Andre Gide : Journal

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Stefan George : 'Du schlank un rein wie eine flamme'

Poems transcribed in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1943) include Stefan George's verses opening 'Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme,' and Baudelaire's 'Hymne' ('A la tres-chere, a la tres-belle'), with accompanying comment: 'The George and the Baudelaire above express, the one with studied starkness, the other with studied affectation, the masculine and feminine of the same idealism [...] Given over to habits of comfort, I feel insincere when I enjoy these poems. They are not for me or for anyone who is not prepared to sacrifice comfort.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Charles Baudelaire : 'Hymne' ('A la tres-chere, a la tres-belle')

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Van Wyck Brooks : The Ordeal of Mark Twain

'The Ordeal of Mark Twain by a bothered and bothering American of the psychoanalysing 20s has succeeded in bothering me a bit [discusses text further, drawing comparisons between Twain's, and own, experiences of ageing and senses of failure].'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Emerich Edward Dalberg Lord Acton : A Lecture on the Study of History

[under heading 'Lord Acton Some "shining precepts" for the historical student] E. M. Forster transcribes passage opening 'Keep men and things apart; guard against the prestige of great names,' and phrase 'The critic is one who, when he lights on an interesting statement, begins by suspecting it,' noting underneath: 'The above are from his lecture "The Study of History" [...] Transcribing them while the planes whirr, I wonder how far Liberalism might have progressed if the world had kept calm.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Arnold Toynbee : A Study of History (vol I)

Noted by E. M. Forster in his Commonplace Book (1944), beside quoted lines 'Thought shall be the harder / Heart the keener / Mood shall be the more / As our might lessens': 'The Lay of the Battle of Malden [sic] (date --) quoted by Arnold Toynbee on the title page of his History. Again the bombers whirr (14-3-44) as I transcribe it.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

: A Handbook for Travellers in Surrey, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight

Transcribed by E. M. Forster in his Commonplace Book (1944): 'On Hydon's top there is a cup And in that cup there is a drop Take up the cup and drink the drop And place the cup on Hydon's top.' Forster notes underneath: 'Local rhyme quoted in Murrays Guide to Surrey.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Bede : Ecclesiastical History (Bk 5 ch 13)

Passages in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1944) include two short quotations, from Bede ('Two most wicked spirits rising with forks in their hands[...]') and Amiel ('S'en aller toute d'un fois est un privilege; tu periras par morceaux'), accompanied by note: 'I encounter these two mournful small fry on the same day. Boo hoo down the ages.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Henri-Frederic Amiel : Fragments d'un Journal Intime

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Charles Waterton : Wanderings in South America

Passages in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1944) include description of domestic life from Charles Waterton, Wanderings in South America, accompanied by comment 'His stupid obscene cruelty to the reptiles out there displeases me.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Samuel Henley : Appendix no. 2

Passages in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1944-45) include account of Ancient Egyptian burial customs, as discovered by later explorers, from Samuel Henley's Appendix to Edward Daniel Clarke, 'The Tomb of Alexander' (1805). Underneath, Forster notes: 'This is the first entry I have made since the death of my mother, today three months in her grave.'

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

John Ruskin : Introduction to Notes on Turner drawings

Passages in E. M. Forster's Commonplace Book (1945) include extracts (on transience of pleasure in nature) from Ruskin's introduction to his notes on Turner drawings owned by him, and exhibited in 1878 at the Fine Art Society's London galleries.

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Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

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Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

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Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Manuscript: Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Unknown

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: ?poster ('notice')

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Newspaper

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Serial / periodical

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book

Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book