What Was Forster Thinking About This Week?
E.M. Forster's letters range across numerous subjects - his day-to-day experiences and attitudes, the books he wrote and read, the times he lived in. By sifting through these, undergraduate Colette Sensier and the Cambridge Authors team have put together an unusual virtual diary of what was on Forster's mind at different times of the year. On this page you'll find what he was thinking this week; and this will change regularly. If you wish, you can receive these updates, approximately once a week, by e-mail. Just enter your email address in the box below to receive your own 'Forster's Thought for the Week'. A great variety of thought-provoking material will come through - sometimes sad, sometimes serious, sometimes quirky and even a little objectionable. Do you see things the same way he did?
WHAT WAS FORSTER THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK?
In April 1905 he was thinking, without much enthusiasm, about teaching. Four years after graduating from Cambridge, and in the same year as he published his first novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread, Forster spent three months working as a tutor in Germany. He described his employer as 'rather disappointing’, with 'false teeth and a society drawl’. After telling his mother that he was required to be strict with the children in lessons, he wrote to her about the weather and the view: 'It’s not quite raining, and the view is woods, a farm with two chimneys, and manure’. (Source: Selected Letters of E.M. Forster, ed. Mary Lago and P.N. Furbank (London: Collins, 1983-1985), letter of 4 April 1905)
