Edward Morgan Forster, an eminent English novelist, short story writer, essayist, and librettist, has left a significant mark on the literary world with his insightful and well-plotted novels. Born on January 1, 1879, Forster's works are celebrated for their exploration of class difference, hypocrisy, and the attitudes towards gender and homosexuality in early 20th-century British society. His novels, rich in irony, include the critically acclaimed A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924), among others.

Forster's education at Tonbridge School and later, King's College, Cambridge, where he studied history and classics, played a crucial role in shaping his literary voice. It was at Cambridge that he forged friendships with other future writers like Lytton Strachey and Leonard Woolf and began to hone his craft. After traveling throughout Europe, he published his first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, in 1905. His humanistic impulse towards understanding and sympathy is beautifully encapsulated in the epigraph to Howards End: "Only connect".

Over the years, Forster also contributed numerous short stories, essays, speeches, and broadcasts to the literary world, in addition to co-authoring the opera Billy Budd (1951). Recognized as one of the most successful novelists of the Edwardian era, his significant contributions to literature were acknowledged with nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 22 separate years.