Howards End

Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct, and personal relationships in turn-of-the-century England. Howards End is considered by some to be Forster's masterpiece. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Howards End 38th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The story revolves around three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century: the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the Colonies; the half-German Schlegel siblings (Margaret, Tibby, and Helen), whose cultural pursuits have much in common with the real-life Bloomsbury Group; and the Basts, an impoverished young couple from a lower class background. The idealistically motivated, well read, highly intelligent Schlegel sisters seek to help the struggling Basts, wishing at the same time to rid the Wilcoxes of some of their deep-seated social and economic prejudices. The Schlegels had briefly met and befriended the Wilcoxes when both families were hiking in Germany. Helen, the youngest daughter, is romantically attracted to the younger Wilcox son, Paul; they get engaged in haste but soon afterwards regret their decision, each rejecting the other for different reasons. The engagement is consequently broken off without acrimony, by mutual consent, despite a somewhat awkward intervention by Helen's aunt, Juley. The eldest daughter, Margaret, then resumes her friendship with Paul's mother, Ruth Wilcox. Ruth's most prized personal possession is her family home at Howards End. She invites her friend to come and visit, feeling that Margaret would immediately connect with the values and history which the old house represents. Ruth's own husband and children do not greatly cherish Howards End, for all its rich cultural heritage; such abstractions, while being very dear to Margaret, are relatively insignificant to them, other than the property's real estate value on the housing market. However owing to a series of circumstances Margaret never gets a chance to visit Howards End while her friend Ruth is still alive. Equally she is unaware that, gravely ill, Ruth regards her as an ideal prospective owner of Howards End, trusting that her home would be safe and in very good hands with her, after she is gone. As Ruth's condition deteriorates quickly, and Margaret and her family are about to be evicted from their London home by a developer when the lease on their house expires, Ruth bequeaths Howards End to Margaret in a handwritten note. This last will and testament of Ruth's (about which Margaret herself knows nothing) is delivered to her husband from the nursing home where she died, causing great consternation and anxiety to the Wilcoxes. Mrs Wilcox's widowed husband, Henry, and his children, burn the note without telling Margaret anything about her inheritance. However over the course of the next several months, Henry Wilcox seeks Margaret's company and is very much impressed with her, as she is with him. Their friendship blossoms into romance and in due course, Henry asks for Margaret's hand in marriage. Margaret accepts. It soon becomes apparent that their personalities could not be more different from one another; the courageous, idealistic, compassionate, high-minded and romantically-inclined Margaret tries to get the fairly rigid, unsentimental, staunchly rational Henry to open up more, to little effect. Henry's children, while outwardly polite to Margaret, do not look upon her engagement to their father with a friendly eye. Evie, the daughter, soon to be married herself, is largely concerned with her own affairs, whereas Paul, the younger son, now lives and works overseas, making his way in Nigeria. The main opposition comes from the elder son, Charles, and his wife Dolly, who are only civil enough to conceal their hostility to Margaret, yet really see her as an intruder, posing a potential threat to their own ambitions.