The English novelist and essayist Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) was concerned with the conflict between the freedom of the spirit and the conventions of society.

Educated at Tonbridge School (which he disliked intensely), E. M. Forster went on to Cambridge. His father, an architect, had died when Forster was only 2 years old, but a legacy from an aunt afforded him his education and the opportunity to travel. It was his experience of Cambridge and of travel in Europe after taking his degree in 1901 which stimulated Forster's imagination and thought and led to the extraordinary burst of creative activity which produced a volume of short stories, The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories (1911), and four novels in quick succession: Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and Howard's End (1910).

Where Angels Fear To Tread presents a conflict between two worlds, represented by the English...