Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books: A quick guide
From the Writers Trail:
15. EM Forster 1879-1970. Novelist: A Room with a View, Howards End, A Passage to India. Had ‘pied a terre’ here from 1939, when he broadcast reviews for the BBC and wrote short stories, till 1970. Nobel Prize nominee (in 16 different years). Companion of Honour, Order of Merit. 9 Arlington Park Mansions, W4 4HE – Blue plaque. (Private house, no access),
English Heritage Blue Plaques: EM Forster
Only Connect: EM Forster lived for over 20 years in W4
EM Forster and his ‘wondrous muddle’ – The Guardian
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1. Marina Vaizey on EM Forster
The art historian Marina Vaizey has lived in Chiswick for many years. She was married to the economist Lord Vaizey and their son Ed Vaizey was the MP for Didcot and Wantage and the UK’s arts and culture minister for six years. She writes:
I thought that anecdotally you might be interested to know that my late husband John instigated the blue plaque for E M Forster (he had met him, as had I, and my historian brother knew him and wrote about him). John figured out from P N Furbank’s biography that Forster had lived in Chiswick, and where – and John then got the blue plaque people to mark Arlington Park Mansions.
We were always going to give a party to celebrate but never got round to it… but making up the guest list was fun even though we never did it! It must have been 40+ years ago whenever the great biography came out, and we were living in Heathfield Terrace.
I had tea with Forster at King’s either in 1955 or 1959!! I remember rather bleak rooms but with a superb view down through the Backs to the Cam. He was quietly courteous and punctilious although he must have been fed up with people turning up to pay a kind of homage. Forster died in 1970. I know he seemed immensely old! and of course I am now an octogenarian….
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2. Howards End – scenes filmed on Chiswick Mall
Information from Movie Tourist.blogspot
Margaret and Helen coming out of a meeting with their discussion group – Strawberry House, Chiswick Mall, London W4
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Margaret and Helen talking to Henry Wilcox – Chiswick Mall, London W4
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3. Bridget Osborne on EM Forster – The Chiswick Calendar
Edwardian novelist who lived in Arlington Park Mansions, overlooking Turnham Green – The Chiswick Calendar, January 2021
EM Forster (1879 – 1970) is considered one of Britain’s greatest novelists. He wrote six novels, all of which were hugely successful from the moment of publication. After his death, A Room with a View, Howards End, and A Passage to India were discovered by new audiences when they were made into films which became every bit as popular in the 1980s and early 1990s as the books had been at the beginning of the century.
He came to Chiswick at the start of the Second World War, by which time he was broadcasting for the BBC and writing for a range of publications. Arlington Park Mansions, where he lived, bears a blue plaque to commemorate the time he spent here.
Chiswick Timeline Writers Trail
Read more stories via the Writers Tales page.
The Chiswick Timeline of Writers & Books lists almost 500 writers who have written a book and lived in Chiswick W4, or written books about the area. See A Quick Guide.