Publisher's Synopsis
Part oneThe novel is set in the early 1900s as upper-middle class English women are beginning to lead more independent, adventurous lives. In the first part, Miss Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her overly-fussy spinster cousin and chaperone, Miss Charlotte Bartlett. The novel opens in Florence with the women complaining about their rooms at the Pensione Bertolini. They were promised rooms with a view of the River Arno but instead have ones overlooking a drab courtyard. Another guest, Mr Emerson, interrupts their "peevish wrangling" by spontaneously offering to swap rooms. He and his son, George, both have rooms with views of the Arno, and argues, "Women like looking at a view; men don't." Charlotte rejects the offer, partly because she looks down on the Emersons' unconventional behaviour, and partially fears it would place them under an "unseemly obligation". However, another guest, Mr Beebe, an Anglican clergyman, persuades Charlotte to accept the offer; Charlotte suggests that the Emersons are socialists.Part twoIn Rome, Lucy spends time with Cecil Vyse, whom she knew in England. Cecil twice proposes to Lucy in Italy; she rejects him both times. As Part Two begins, Lucy has returned to Surrey, England, to her family home, Windy Corner. Cecil proposes yet again and this time she accepts. Cecil is a sophisticated London aesthete whose rank and class make him a desirable match, despite his despising country society; he is a rather comic figure who is snobbish and gives himself pretentious airs.The vicar, Mr Beebe, announces that a local villa has been leased; the new tenants are the Emersons, who, after a chance meeting with Cecil in London, learned about the villa being available. Cecil enticed them to come to the village as a comeuppance to the villa's landlord, Sir Harry Otway, whom Cecil (who believes himself to be very democratic) thinks is a snob. Lucy is angry with Cecil, as she had tentatively arranged for the elderly Misses Alan, guests at the Pensione Bertolini, to rent the villa.
