The Hill of Devi [Paperback]

E.M. Forster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 1971

The author's experiences as private secretary to a brilliant young Maharajah. Forster creates a complex portrait of a true ruler. Photographs.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

A graceful writer with a keen eye for the bittersweetness bound in differences of class and culture, E. M. Forster had an abbreviated but remarkably successful career as a novelist and established himself as one of England's most insightful 20th-century writers.

Edward Morgan Forster was born in London in 1879, attended Tonbridge School as a day boy, and went on to King's College, Cambridge, in 1897. With King's he had a lifelong connection and was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 1946. He declared that his life as a whole had not been dramatic, and he was unfailingly modest about his achievements. Interviewed by the BBC on his eightieth birthday, he said: "I have not written as much as I'd like to... I write for two reasons: partly to make money and partly to win the respect of people whom I respect... I had better add that I am quite sure I am not a great novelist." Eminent critics and the general public have judged otherwise and in his obituary The Times called him "one of the most esteemed English novelists of his time."

He wrote six novels, four of which appeared before the First World War, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), and Howard's End (1910). An interval of fourteen years elapsed before he published A Passage to India. It won both the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Maurice, his novel on a homosexual theme, finished in 1914, was published posthumously in 1971. He also published two volumes of short stories; two collections of essays; a critical work, Aspects of the Novel; The Hill of Devi, a fascinating record of two visits Forster made to the Indian State of Dewas Senior; two biographies; two books about Alexandria (where he worked for the Red Cross in the First World War); and, with Eric Crozier, the libretto for Britten's opera Billy Budd. He died in Coventry, England, June 1970.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (September 29, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156402653
• ISBN-13: 978-0156402651
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #753,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the experience from which Passage to India was drawn, October 15, 2006

By 

bukhtan (Chicago, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hill of Devi (Paperback)

Forster spent a couple of years working as a secretary for an indigenous royal within the British Raj, a situation quite different from that of most Britishers working out in the Empire at that time and resulting in an experience, outward and inward, quite different from the ferociously enforced norm. Of course the man was quite different from the ferociously enforced norm to start with. This is Forster's account of that experience, and, aside from his own story, it includes a lot of interesting details of the "India" of that time, some of which still hold true (e.g. an innate tendency toward political intrigue, and generally the overwhelming social structure), and some of which are now receding into history (e.g. enormous morning flights of fruit bats returning to their roosts in the jungle, and generally the overwhelming presence of nature).
Anyone who whose enjoyment of "Passage" went beyond plot and characterization will find quite a bit of edification in the cultural information supplied here. Of course, not being a novel, it lacks the full narrative impulse that people enjoy in "Passage", if they enjoyed it.

1 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The book is really helpful to understanding Passage, September 3, 2000

By 

xu jiabing (Jiangsu, China(mainland)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hill of Devi (Paperback)

To be frank,I never have the chance to read the book,yet I ever read lots of essays and thesis telling me that the book is really helpful to a student intending to have a in-depth search of Passage,so I wish to get the book for a long time.Although I tried all means, I haven't gotten the book.That's why I've come to the Amazon.