Furbank, P. N.  E. M. Forster: A Life.  2 vols.  London: Secker & Warburg, 1977-78.

Furbank was a friend from the early 1950s until Forster's death and had been designated by him to write the inevitable biography (this overturned the earlier choice of William Plomer).  Furbank was the first to publish results of a meticulous reading of the letters and manuscripts left to King's College, Cambridge.  This book has been reprinted many times in a single volume in England and the United States.  As of 2005 it is still the standard biography.

Beauman, Nicola.  Morgan: A Biography of E. M. Forster.  London, 1993.

King, Francis.  E. M. Forster and His World.  New York: Scribner's, 1978.

This book offers the most extensive published photographic record of Forster.  King's text offers some original insights by a fellow homosexual, but it is a rather catty narrative by someone who is not known to have been a friend.

Haag, Michael.  Alexandria: City of Memory.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Reproduces many wonderful photos of Alexandria from around the time Forster was there; also reproduces some documents and photographs from the King's College trove and traces Forster's Alexandrian adventure through his letters and journals from the period.  Also has similarly rich sections on Cavafy and Durrell.

Letters

Selected Letters of E. M. Forster.  2 vols.  Ed. Mary Lago and P. N. Furbank.  Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983-85.

Calendar of the Letters of E. M. Forster.  Compiled by Mary Lago.   London: Mansell Publishing, 1985.

Forster corresponded prodigously throughout his life, writing cards, notes, and letters mostly by hand.  The Selected Letters prints a mere 446 of the almost 12,000 items listed in Mary Lago's amazing Calendar, and new Forster correspondence continues to come to light.

Bibliography

Kirkpatrick, B. J.  A Bibliography of E. M. Forster.  2nd ed.  Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.

An extraordinary and almost impeccable record of Forster's publications and manuscripts. A resource to be mined incessantly. Forster worked with Kirkpatrick on the first edition and contributed a foreword.  "I am surprised and glad to discover from this bibliography that I have written so much." One longs for a third edition.

New or Notable Editions of works by Forster

Alexandria: A History and a Guide and Pharos and Pharillon.  Edited by Miriam Allott.  Abinger Edition 16.  London: Andre Deutsch, 2004.

The last volume in the scholarly Abinger Edition, which has been 30 years in the making.  Ample introductory material and notes.  Also reprints Forster's essay "Egypt" from the 1920 Labour Party pamphlet and, perhaps most importantly of all, this edition prints for the first time Forster's intimate journal in the form of a letter recording the history of his relationship with Mohammed el Adl.  No illustrations.

The Feminine Note in Literature.   Edited with an Introduction by George Piggford.  The Bloomsbury Heritage Series 28.  London: Cecil Woolf, 2001.

A scholarly and meticulous presentation of the text of a talk given twice by Forster in 1910.  Heretofore this thought-provoking essay could only be seen in manuscript at King's College.  The editor speculates, in his informed and useful introduction, that the essay, which Virginia Stephen (later Woolf) heard in December 1910, may have been among the influences that led to her now famous statement: "On or about December 1910 human character changed."  Since Forster's writing has been both praised and blamed for its "feminine" traits, it is illuminating to read his reflections on the characteristics of novels written by women.