A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Lucy Honeychurch, an upper-middle-class young woman, visits Italy with her older cousin Charlotte. At her pension, or guesthouse, in Florence, they are given rooms that face the courtyard instead of the Arno River. Mr. Emerson, a fellow guest, generously offers them the rooms that belong to him and his son George. Although Charlotte is offended by Mr. Emerson's lack of tact and decorum, she ultimately accepts the change. Lucy is a young and avid pianist. Mr. Beebe observes her passionate performance and predicts that one day she will live her life with as much enthusiasm as she plays the piano.
Lucy's visit to Italy is marked by several important encounters with the Emersons. At Santa Croce church, George complains that his father has good intentions, but he always offends everyone. Mr. Emerson tells Lucy that her son needs her to overcome her youthful melancholy. Later, her Lucy walks through the Piazza Signoria, feeling bored, when she comes into close contact with two Italians who are fighting. One man stabs the other, and she passes out to be rescued by George. On his journey home, he kisses her, to her surprise. She keeps her reckless behavior a secret.
On a field trip through the hills, Lucy wanders in search of Mr. Beebe and the arrogant chaplain, Mr. Eager. However, the Italian taxi driver takes her to George, who is standing on a terrace covered in blue violets. George sees her and kisses her again, but this time Charlotte sees him and scolds him after they have returned to the boarding house. She goes with Lucy to Rome the next day.
The second half of the book focuses on Lucy's house in Surrey, where she lives with her mother, Mrs. Honeychurch, and her brother, Freddy. A man she met in Rome, the snob Cecil Vyse, proposes to her for the third time and she accepts him. He disapproves of her family and the country people she knows, finding them crude and unsophisticated. There is an ugly little villa available for rent in town, and as a joke, Cecil offers it to the Emersons, whom she meets by chance at a museum. They accept the offer and move in, much to Lucy's initial horror.
George plays tennis with Honey Churches on a Sunday when Cecil is in his most intolerable moment. After the game, Cecil reads a book by Miss Lavish, a woman who also stayed with Lucy and Charlotte at Florence's boarding house. The novel records a kiss between violets, and Lucy realizes that Charlotte revealed the secret. In a moment alone, George kisses her again. Lucy tells him to leave her, but George insists that Cecil is not the right man for her, portraying Cecil as controlling and appreciative of things rather than people. Lucy sees Cecil in a new light and breaks her engagement that night.
However, her Lucy will not believe that she loves George; she wants to stay single and travel to Greece with some old women she met in Italy, the Miss Alans. She meets old Mr. Emerson by chance, who insists that she loves George and should marry him, because it is what her soul really wants. Lucy realizes that he is right and, although she must go against convention, she marries George and the book ends with the happy couple staying again at Florence's pension, in a room with a view. .
