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Room with a View Hardcover - 1988

by E. M. Forster


About this book

E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View is a novel about a young woman in the repressed culture of the Edwardian age. In this, the story is both a romance and a critique of English society at the beginning of the 20th century. A Room with a View was the first novel that Forster started, but it wasn’t published until 1908, after he’d written and published two other books—Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905) and The Longest Journey (1907). As one of Forster’s earlier works, A Room with a View is not as mature or complex as Howard's End (1910) and Passage to India (1924). However, its strength lies in its vivid cast of characters, humorous dialogue, and comedic play upon the manners of the day.

A Room with a View is ranked 79th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel has been adapted for stage, film, radio, and television. Perhaps most notable is the 1985 award-winning film adaptation starring Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, and Daniel Day-Lewis.

From the publisher

This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim propriety among an eccentric cast of characters assembled in an Italian pensione and in a corner of Surrey, England.A charming young Englishwoman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Britisher when she witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George Emerson-who is entirely unsuitable and whose father just may be a Socialist-Lucy is soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires. Back in England, she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor and soon realizes she must make a startling decision that will decide the course of her future: she is forced to choose between convention and passion.

First Edition Identification

Edward Arnold first published A Room with a View in 1908. First editions are bound in ribbed burgundy cloth and have 324 pages (plus 8 catalogue pages at the end). Published in a limited print run of 2,000 copies, A Room with a View is the scarcest first edition of Forster's 5 major novels, copies having sold for upwards of $1,800.

Details

  • Title Room with a View
  • Author E. M. Forster
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Pages 348
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher North Books
  • Date 1988-08
  • Large Print Yes
  • ISBN 9780939495429 / 0939495422
  • Weight 1.3 lbs (0.59 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.71 x 5.71 x 1.12 in (22.12 x 14.50 x 2.84 cm)
  • Reading level 760
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC