Aspects of the Novel

Aspects of the Novel is E. M. Forster’s classic study of the art of fiction, based on a series of lectures he gave at Cambridge and published in 1927. Rather than march through literary history, Forster talks as one novelist to his readers about the elements that make a novel work, among them story, people, plot, and rhythm, and it is here that he draws his famous distinction between flat characters, who never change, and round ones, who can surprise us convincingly. Witty, personal, and full of shrewd judgements on the great novelists, the book remains one of the most readable and quoted works of criticism in English. This free PDF and EPUB offers the complete text.