Like E. M. Forster's first novel Where Angels Fear to Tread, his third is a story of Anglo-Italian contrasts, with England representing repression and education beside Italy's culture of passion and emotion. A social comedy told in Forster's distinctive liberal voice, A Room with a View (1908) is largely a story concerned with the moral education of its young heroine, Lucy Honeychurch. Comparisons with the novels of Jane Austen are easily made. The novel opens at the Pensione Bertolini in Florence, where Lucy is holidaying with her cousin, Charlotte Bartlett. Also staying in the same accommodation are Mr Beebe, a clergyman, the Miss Allens, two elderly spinsters, and Elinor Lavish, a writer of sensational novels. But

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Published 08 January 2001

Citation: Childs, Peter. "A Room with a View". The Literary Encyclopedia. 8 January 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7004, accessed 9 February 2010.]