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Forster, born inLondon on January 1, 1879, was raised by his mother, Alice Clara Whichelo Forster (known as Lily), two aunts, and a grandmother. His father, an architect named Edmund Morgan, died of consumption in 1880. Forster spent a happy childhood at Rooksnest, a house in Hertfordshire his mother rented, which provided the material for Forster's 1910 novel Howards End. Boarding school, however, was a misery. In 1890, Forster attended Kent House, a prep school inEastbourne, but harassment led to his transfer to The Grange. When that proved intolerable, Lily moved to Tonbridge in 1893 and Forster became a day boy atTonbridge School, where he finished prep school. While attending Tonbridge, Forster had his first taste of travel when he joined his mother on a tour of churches in 1895. Marianne Thornton, a great-aunt, bequeathed Forster monetary independence. He used some of this money, beginning in 1897, to attend King's College,Cambridge. Forster thrived in the liberating atmosphere of the university where he belonged to the Cambridge Conversazione Society, also known as the Apostles. Among these friends, Forster learned that being homosexual was not abnormal. After a period of travel, Forster joined his old friends for avant-garde discussions as a member of the Bloomsbury Group. At school, he achieved an unsatisfactory second-class honors degree in classics followed by one of the same rank in history. He was awarded an M.A. in 1910. Disappointed by his academic rank, Forster accepted his mother's plan to delay the future by travelling. InItaly, their stay in a Florentine pension inspired Forster to begin work, in 1902, on the "Lucy" novel, which would eventually become A Room with a View. He returned to Englandbriefly before he began a life abroad with a journey toGreecein 1903. This expedition was followed by travels to Germany, South Africa, and theUnited States. Forster's visits to Indiaresulted in several works, most notably a 1924 novel, A Passage toIndia. During World War I, Forster volunteered as a searcher for the Red Cross inEgypt. He interviewed convalescent soldiers in order to gain information about missing persons. While inEgypt, Forster made a name for himself as an essayist and travel writer under the pseudonym Pharos (for the ancient lighthouse). These writings gave way to Alexandria: A History and a Guide, followed by a book that collected essays from the period. At the age of forty-six, Forster separated from his mother and rented a flat of his own inLondon. He began a relationship with Robert Buckingham which became a lasting friendship when Robert married in 1931. For the next thirty-nine years, Forster remained a respected essayist and literary critic. After his death June 7, 1970, from a series of strokes, Maurice, a largely autobiographical novel whose protagonist grapples with the trials of being gay, was published in accordance with Forster's will. A seventh novel that Forster never completed, Arctic Summer, was published in 1980.
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