ABSTRACT
The spirit of place, previously associated in the short stories and Italian novels with classical myth and Mediterranean culture, now assumes a distinctly English form; moreover, the individual's moments of truth, the symbolic moments in his spiritual development, are now presented in relation to a larger, public theme. The Longest Journey is Footer's most autobiographical novel. In the Introduction which Forster wrote in 1960 for the World's Classics edition of the novel, he confesses that although it has proved the 'least popular' of his novels, it was the one he was 'most glad to have written'. Stewart Ansell's harmonious background is a complete contrast to Rickie's rootlessness and the Pembrokes' dissociation of culture from money. Poets and novelists sometimes see their 'intentions' more clearly in retrospect than at the time of writing, especially when provoked or given a nudge by subsequent criticism, as Forster was nudged by Lionel Trilling's book to see Howards End in Trilling's terms.
