Howards End

About the book

The Schlegel sisters value conversation, art, and personal understanding, while the Wilcox family approaches life through business, practical authority, and possession. Their encounters become entangled with Leonard Bast, whose precarious circumstances make the sisters' generous intentions difficult to translate into effective help. Howards End, a house associated with Ruth Wilcox, gives questions of inheritance and belonging a physical centre. Forster lets arguments emerge through visits, misunderstandings, advice, and attachments rather than keeping them at the level of abstract positions. Money repeatedly determines how much freedom a person has to experiment with a principle or recover from a mistake. The novel asks what connection between different lives would actually require, especially when those most eager to understand others remain protected from the consequences their interventions can produce.

• Class and connection
• Inheritance
• Good intentions

Why read it

For a social novel that tests humane ideals against the unequal security of the people expected to live by them.

English text