Howards End

Howards End is a novel by the English writer E. M. Forster, first published in 1910. It was conceived in June 1908 and finished in July 1910.

The book follows three families at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Wilcoxes are rich and practical, with a fortune made in the colonies; the Schlegels are half German and devoted to books and music, and are gradually losing the life they are used to; and the Basts are poor and respectable and about to be ruined by the conduct of the other two. Howards End is the Hertfordshire house that Mrs Wilcox leaves to Margaret Schlegel, and it becomes the place where the claims the families have on one another have to be settled. The desire to connect the parts of a life that the other characters keep apart is the organising idea of the book.

Forster published five novels and stopped writing fiction in 1924, and this is generally counted as the one in which his interests in class, property and personal loyalty are most completely worked out.