E. M. Forster Interviews and Recollections Also edited by J. H. Stape

AN E. M. FORSTER CHRONOLOGY E. M. FORSTER Interviews and Recollections

Edited by

J. H. STAPE Visiting Professor in English Clliba University, Japan

M St. Martin's Press Selection and editorial matter © J. H. Stape 1993 Softcover reprint of the hardcover Ist edition 1993

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in Great Britain 1993 by TIiE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Hbundmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

This book is published in Macmillan's Interviews and Recollections series.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-349-12852-5 ISBN 978-1-349-12850-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12850-1

First published in the United States of America 1993 by Scholarly and Reference Division, ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

ISBN 978-0-312-07961-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data E. M. Forster: interviews and recollections / edited by J. H. Stape. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-312-07961-1 1. Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970-Interviews. 2. Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan), 1879-1970-Biography. 3. Novelists, English-20th century-Interviews. 4. Novelists, English-20th century-Biography. I. Stape, J. H. (John Henry) PR6011.058Z6536 1993 823'.912-dc20 [B) 91-48150 CIP Contents

Preface viii Acknawledgements xi A Note on the Text xvi Forster's Life: A Chronology xvii

INTERVIEWS AND RECOLLECTIONS

Part I Forster Observed 1

, A touch of real and rare distinction' W. F. Reddaway 3 Travels in Italy and Austria E. J. Dent 4 The Diaries of Siegfried Sassoon 7 'Aesthetic or social reformer?' Beatrice Webb 13 Paris, 1935 Katherine Anne Porter 14 A PEN Luncheon Storm Jameson 16 At the London Library Sir Harold Nicolson 17 West Hackhurst, 1945 Sir Malcolm Darling 18 Notes on a Friend William Plomer 19 Moments with Morgan Forster Rose Macaulay 23 Tea in Cambridge Robert Craft 24

Part II In Conversation 27

A Conversation with E. M. Forster Angus Wilson 29 E. M. Forster on his Life and Books 38

Part III Bloomsbury 43

The Diary of Virginia Woolf 45 Morgan at Ham Spray Ralph Partridge 52

v vi Contents

Morgan Gerald Brenan 52 , As near to a Good Man as any' Frances Partridge 54 Great Friend David Garnett 56

Part IV Among Friends 63

Morgan Comes to Tea Naomi Mitchison 65 Meeting E. M. Forrest Reid 71 Lunch during the Munich Crisis Christopher Isherwood 73 At Joe Ackerley's James Kirkup 74 Some Reminiscences May Buckingham 77 Memories of E. M. Forster Lady Faith Culme-Seymour 80

Part V Encounters with Forster 89

Meeting' an old and valued author' Robert Giroux 91 From Avignon to Paris with E. M. Forster Alan Helms 98 Encountering E. M. Forster James McConkey 99 'Meetings which are not precisely personal' Eudora Welty 102 A Dinner, a Talk, a Walk with Forster Glenway Wescott 104 Mr Forster of King's Sandy Campbell 112

Part VI On Stage 125

Watching Stephen Spender 127 A Late Debut Frank Hauser 128 Remembering E. M. Forster Santha Rama Rau 132

Part VII At King's 153

Forster's Library A. N. 1. Munby 155 The Strangeness of E. M. Forster Simon Raven 156 The Later Years 1. P. Wilkinson 161 Forster's Eightieth Birthday Luncheon Sir Malcolm Darling 180 Contents vii

Part VIII Pen Portraits 185

'Independent, Cantabrigian, and a bachelor' Frank Swinnerton 187 Raising the Shield of Achilles Willillm Plomer 189 Orpheus and Morgan Charles Mauron 193 Kingsman Mollie Panter-Downes 196

Part IX Forster Remembered 207

Memories of Morgan Evert Barger 209 A Personal Recollection Mulk Raj Anand 217 Three Cheers for E. M. Forster V. S. Pritchett 221 E. M. Forster (1879-1970) Stephen Spender 225 Morgan Forster Remembered Lord Annan 228

Index 231 Preface

Not long after Forster's death in 1970, Glenway Wescott predicted a 'God's plenty' of Forster memoirs as 'he has entered importantly into the legendry of Now'. In the event, although there is no penury of material for a kaleidoscopic view of Forster's life and activities, that prediction has proved slightly over-optimistic. Any compilation of memoirs of a writer's life is necessarily a matter of compromise between an imagined ideal and the realistically achievable. For the writer still in living memory, it is perhaps even more so. The ambition to avoid hagiography and to select material so as to present a 'faithful' overview while avoiding repetition ought to be a conscious aim. There is, then, the nature and extent of the published recollections, with their varying authority and quality, and the prosaic task of gathering material with its attendant practical difficulties, some of which have proved insurmountable: permission fees stipulated for some pieces were beyond budget; repeated requests for rights to reprint others went unanswered; some persons who knew Forster declined an invitation to write about him or thought they had already sufficiently had their say. But beyond such predictable disappointments lie inherent structural problems related to the character and temperament of the particular individual whose life is a matter of public interest and curiosity. And there are those common to the remembering imagination - inexactitude, ex­ aggeration, sheer invention. While annotations might discreetly address the latter problems, the former go with the territory. Thus, even as the various witnesses to Forster's life on offer here should provide new insights and confirm or alter received ideas about his character, some skewing of the picture is unavoid­ able. Forster himself was a shy and guarded, if not a retiring individual, and some protection of his personal life from the enquiring public or academic eye became ever more necessary to him as his fame grew. There was, moreover, the fact of his homo­ sexuality, a secret that shaped and determined so much in his life

viii Preface ix and work, but an increasingly open secret as he aged and as public attitudes, and the law itself, altered. Late Victorian by upbringing and education, elusive by nature, forced into a double life by the morality of the time, Forster, more than many, was pressured into becoming a cautious revealer of himself. Even close friends, perhaps, often saw mostly or only what he per­ mitted them to see. This is hardly to suggest that he was a performer, putting on a public mask to suit the friend, the visitor or the occasion, but that both inner compulsion and outward demand made him an individual whose deepest recesses re­ mained private and inaccessible. The organisation of the recollections gathered together here attempts thematic coherence while being roughly ordered chronologically. The opening section focuses on Forster as individual and as writer as recorded in extracts from diaries and in letters of contemporaries. 'In Conversation' allows Forster to speak about himself and his work in his own voice. The volume's mid-section centres on facets of Forster's involvements with friends and other writers, especially with Bloomsbury, while also fOCUSing on his connections with opera and the theatre and on his long association with King's College, Cambridge. The closing section, grouping together full-length portraits and obituary appreciations, presents Forster seen, as it were, in the round, from the vantage point of retrospect and evaluation. There are disappointingly few impressions of Forster at the early and most important period of his life as a writer, the years 1901-14, those of his most fertile creative phase. And there are further frustrating gaps: many of those closest to him - and his high valuation of friendship makes this a particularly significant lacuna - have left no record of their friendship, and the fact of his living to great age and thus surviving so many of his acquaintances and intimates no doubt accounts for some recollections remaining unwritten. Those few that do reflect on the younger man are not always exempt from the tendency for the carapace of fame and experience to shut out the earlier, more immediate view. In a sense, the public and established personality takes hold of and moulds the 'recollection' of earlier days. Still, however long and whatever the composition of a wish-list for further memoirs, those whose lives have either deeply or glancingly touched Forster's own offer valuable and x Preface

frequently penetrating insights about him and his experience. The extant evidence, even if not quite 'God's plenty', leaves enough to sift through. In the end, that a central enigma remains is neither unexpected nor inappropriate to a writer whose subtle analyses of human foible and achievement always urged an awareness of the intractably unknowable and unobservable, that dimly apprehended, undefinable space lying 'beyond' that he so much insists upon in . Acknowledgements

The editor and publishers should like to thank the following for their kind permission to use copyright material:

Lord Annan, for his 'Remembering Morgan Forster'.

Mr Malcolm van Biervliet and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, for unpublished material by Sir Malcolm Darling.

Mrs May Buckingham, for her 'Some Reminiscences'.

Mme Alice Charles-Mauron, for 'Quelques traits de E. M. Forster' by Charles Mauron.

Chatto & Wind us, for the extract from a letter by Ralph Partridge in Best of Friends: The Brenan-Partridge Letters.

Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, Bt, for 'Memories of E. M. Forster' by Lady Faith Culme-Seymour.

Doubleday, a division of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell Publishing Group, Inc. (US rights), for the extract from Swinnerton: An Autobiography.

Durham University, for unpublished material by William Plomer.

Faber and Faber Ltd and Random House Inc., for the extract from Journals 1939-1983 by Sir Stephen Spender; @ 1986 by Stephen Spender.

Faber and Faber Ltd, for the extract from Private Road by Forrest Reid.

xi xii Acknowledgements

Mr Tony Garrett, for 'A Conversation with E. M. Forster' by Sir Angus Wilson.

Mr Stephen Gilbert (US rights), for the extract from Private Road by Forrest Reid.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, for the extract from Diaries and Letters 1939-1945 by Sir Harold Nicolson.

Sir Rupert Hart-Davis, for the extracts from At Home: Memoirs and Electric Delights and for unpublished material by William Plomer.

Harvill Publishers Ltd, for the extract from Journey from the North by Storm Jameson.

Mr Frank Hauser and Grand Street, for his 'A Late Debut'.

Professor Alan Helms, for the extract from his Damaged Goods.

Professors Judith Scherer Herz and Robert K. Martin, for the extracts from 'Writers' Panel' in E. M. Forster: Centenary Revaluations.

David Higham Associates Ltd, for 'Morgan Comes to Tea' by Naomi Mitchison.

The Hogarth Press and the Executors of the estate of Virginia Woolf (world rights exclusive of the US) and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. (US rights), for the extracts from The Diary of Virginia Woolf.

Listener Publications Ltd, for 'E. M. Forster on his Life and Books'.

Methuen London Ltd, for the extract from Down There on a Visit by Christopher Isherwood.

Mrs Sheila Munby, for the extract from the 'Introduction' to E. M. Forster: Hefler Catalogue Seven by A. N. L. Munby. Aclcnowledgements xiii

Mr J. Parker, for the extracts from the diaries of E. J. Dent.

Miss Santha Rama Rau and Grand Street, for her 'Remembering E. M. Forster'.

Mr Simon Raven and the Spectator, for his 'The Strangeness of E. M. Forster'.

Mr M. E. Richardson, Director of Extra-mural Studies of the University of Cambridge, for the extract from a letter by W. F. Reddaway.

Mr George Sassoon and Sir Rupert Hart-Davis, for the extracts from Diaries by Siegfried Sassoon.

Miss O. M. Swinnerton (world rights exclusive of the US), for the extract from Swinnerton: An Autobiography.

Virago Press, for the extract from The Diary of Beatrice Webb.

A. P. Watt Ltd (world rights exclusive of the US), on behalf of the Executors of the estate of David Garnett, for 'Edward Morgan Forster' by David Garnett.

George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd, for the extract from I, of All People: An Autobiography of Youth by James Kirkup.

Mrs Sydney Wilkinson and the Provost and Scholars of King's College, Cambridge, for 'E. M. Forster: The Later Years' by L. P. Wilkinson.

The following copyright credits are also made:

'E. M. Forster: A Personal Recollection' by Mulk Raj Anand, reprinted by permission of Hans Zell Publishers, an imprint of Bowker-Saur Ltd.

'Memories of Morgan' by Evert Barger; copyright @ The New York TImes Company, reprinted by permission.

The extract from Gerald Brenan's Personal Record: 1920-1972; xiv Acknowledgements

@ 1974 Gerald Brenan, reproduced by permission of Margaret Hanbury, Literary Agent, 27 Walcot Square, London SEll 4UB.

'Mr Forster of King's' by Sandy Campbell; copyright @ 1964 Conde Nast Publications, Inc., by courtesy of Mademoiselle.

The extract from Stravinsky: The Chronicle of a Friendship, 1948-1971 by Robert Craft; copyright @ 1972 Robert Craft, reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

The letters of E. M. Forster quoted by permission of King's College, Cambridge, and The Society of Authors as the literary representatives of the E. M. Forster Estate.

The extract from Great Friends: Portraits of Seventeen Writers by David Garnett; copyright @ 1979 David Garnett, reprinted by permission of Atheneum Publishers, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing Company (US rights).

'E. M. Forster' by Robert Giroux; copyright @ 1987 Robert Giroux, reprinted by permission of the author and the Yale Review.

The extracts from Last Letters to a Friend and Letters to a Sister by the late Dame Rose Macaulay, reprinted by permission of the Peters, Fraser & Dunlop Group Ltd.

The extracts from 'Kingsman' by Mollie Panter-Downes; @ 1959, 1987 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc., reprinted by permission.

The extract from Memories; @ 1981 Frances Partridge, first published by Victor Gollancz, 1981; the extract from Everything to Lose: Diaries 1940-1960; @ 1985 Frances Partridge, first published by Victor Gollancz, 1985, reprinted by permission of Frances partridge.

The extract from The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter; @ 1970 by Katherine Anne Porter, reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company / Seymour Lawrence (world rights exclusive of the British Commonwealth) and William Morris Agency (British Commonwealth rights). Acknowledgements xv

'E. M. Forster' by Sir Victor Pritchett, reproduced by permission of New StatesmIln and Society.

The extract from 'E. M. Forster (1879-1970)' by Sir Stephen Spender; copyright @ 1970 Nyrev, Inc., reprinted by permission of the New York Review of Books.

, A Dinner, a Talk, a Walk with Forster' by Glenway Wescott; copyright @ 1971 Glenway Wescott, reprinted by permission of Harold Ober Associates, Inc.

Whilst every effort has been made to locate owners of copyright, in a few cases this has been unsuccessful. The editor and publishers apologise for any infringement of copyright and shall be glad to include any necessary corrections in subsequent printings.

Thanks for answering enquiries and providing information and advice are due to Mrs Nicola Beauman, Mme Alice Charles­ Mauron, Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, Mr Raymond Gauthier, Professors Judith Scherer Herz, Robert K. Martin and S. P. Rosenbaum, Mr Wan-ling Wee and Mr Donald Windham, and for assistance with research and typing to Messrs Philip Anson and Bernard Martin. lowe a special debt of gratitude to Dr Michael Halls, sometime Archivist of Modem Papers at King's College, Cambridge, and the College Librarian, Mr Peter Jones, for facilitating my consultation of the Forster Archive. A Note on the Text

In the selections, spelling errors in the original have been silently corrected. A writer's spellings and usages have been retained except for the omission of the terminal point in abbreviations such as Dr and Mr and abbreviations such as USA. In the case of material published here for the first time, paragraphing and punctuation have been styled to conform to standard practice. While their integrity has been respected, such pieces have been subject to minor editorial alteration, where necessary, to facilitate reading. TItles of books, plays, operas and pictures are printed in italics, those of short stories in quotation marks. Unspaced points ( ... ) indicate ellipses in the original while spaced points ( . . . ) indicate an editorial omission within a selection. In cases where titles have been supplied or altered the original title appears in full in the publication information. Quotations from Forster's works have been altered to conform to the text of the Abinger Edition where the work in question has appeared in it; otherwise the first English edition has been cited. Quotations from Forster's letters appear as cited in the selections. Misquotations from material other than Forster's work have been silently corrected. The notes normally identify individuals on first mention, except where the individual is an author of a memoir printed herein. Dates for events in Forster's life and the publication dates of his writings are found in the Chronology.

xvi Forster's Life: A Chronology

1879 (1 Jan) Edward Morgan Forster born in London, only child of Edward Morgan Uewellyn and Alice Clara 'Lily' (nee Whichelo) Forster. 1880 Forster's father dies of tuberculosis. 1883 Moves to 'Rooksnest', Stevenage, basis for ''. 1887 Inherits £8000 from his great-aunt, . 1890-3 Attends Kent House School, Eastbourne. 1893-7 Attends Tonbridge School as a day-boy. 1897 Goes up to King's College, Cambridge, to read classics. 1900 BA conferred. Decides to continue studies for another year, reading history. 1901 Elected to the Apostles. 1901-2 Travels in Italy and the (then Austrian) Tyrol with his mother. Works at but eventually abandons Nottingham Lace. 1903 Travels in Italy and Greece. First published story,

I Albergo Empedocle', in Temple Bilr. 1905 In Germany as tutor to the Countess von Arnim's children. Where Angels FeIlr to 'ITead published. 1906 The Aeneid of Virgil with Forster's introduction and notes published. 1907 The Longest Journey published. 1908 A Room with Il Vrew published. 1910 Howards End published. 1911 Ilnd Other Stories published. Works on 'The Heart of Bosnia' (unpublished play). Begins writing homoerotic stories and Arctic Summer. 1912-13 Travels in India. Begins A Pllssllge to India on return. Abandons Arctic Summer. 1913-14 Writes .

xvii xviii Forster's Life: A Chronology

1914 Part-time cataloguer at the National Gallery. Works at a book on Samuel Butler (abandoned 1915). 191~19 In Egypt, as searcher in the Red Cross Wounded and Missing Bureau. Contributes articles to the Egyptian Mail. 1920 Interim literary editor of the Daily Herald. 1921-2 In India as private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas State Senior. 1922 Alexandria: A History and a Guide published. 1923 Pharos and Pharillon published. 1924 A Passage to India published. 1927 Delivers Clark Lectures at Cambridge; published as . Elected Supernumerary Fellow of King's College (until 1933). 1928 and Other Stories published. 1929 Travels in Africa. 1930 Meets Bob Buckingham, beginning of lifelong relationship. 1931 'Creator as Critic' lectures for Cambridge English Faculty. 1932 Visits Hungary, Rumania and Poland. First regular connection with the BBC. 1934 President of the National Council for Civil Liberties. Goldsworthy Lawes Dickinson published. 1936 Abinger Harvest published. 1938 England's Pleasant Land performed and published. 1939 Serves on Lord Chancellor's Committee on Defamatory Libel. 1941 Rede Lecture on Virginia Woolf at Cambridge. 1945 Forster's mother dies. Attends All-India Writers' Con­ ference at Jaipur and travels in India. 1946 Elected Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cam­ bridge. Takes up residence in Cambridge. 1947 First trip to the United States. The Collected Tales of E. M. Forster published. 1949 Second trip to the United States. Declines knighthood. 1951 published. Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd to Forster's and Eric Crozier's libretto premieres at Covent Garden. 1953 Induction as Companion of Honour. The Hill of Devi published. Forster's Life: A Chronology xix

1956 Marianne Thornton published. 1960 Pens 'Terminal Note' to Maurice. 1961 Writes 'Little Imber', last story. 1969 Awarded Order of Merit. 1970 (7 June) Dies at the Buckinghams' home and is cremated in Coventry. 1971 Maurice and Albergo Empedocle and Other Writings published. 1972 and Other Stories published. 1980 Arctic Summer and Other Fiction published.