1905-2005 The
centenary of
E. M. Forster intended his first novel to be published with the title Monteriano, an imaginary name for the quite real San Gimignano, a betowered town on a Tuscan hill between Florence and Siena and the model for the story's setting. The publishers didn't care for the title, however, and Forster's friend Edward Dent (upon whom the character Philip Herrition is partially based) suggested the phrase "where angels fear to tread," from Alexander Pope's proverbial "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Forster is reported not to have liked the title, and when the novel was published by William Blackwood and Sons at the beginning of October, 1905, the reviewer for the Manchester Guardian seems to have agreed: "Where Angels Fear to Tread is not at all the kind of book that its title suggests. It is not mawkish or sentimental or commonplace." |
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Other reviewers did not comment on the title, however, and it is hard to deny that the phrase is provocatively apt in relation to the plot. To the extent that a title can do so, it probably promoted the sale of the novel rather more effectively than Forster's tame preference would have. And the book did sell well. After generally favorable reviews, the first edition of 1050 copies was running out by Christmas time and there was a second printing of 526 copies in January 1906. One of the reviews, that of C. F. G. Masterman in the London Daily News, stands out for its insight, praise, and prescience. There were no further printings of the book in England until 1924, when—to capitalize on the resurgence of interest in Forster after the hugely successful publication of A Passage to India—Where Angels Fear to Tread was issued in a new Uniform Edition along with all the other pre-Passage novels. Angels was not published in the United States until 1920. Many other editions followed in subsequent decades on both sides of the Atlantic. A stage version of Where Angels Fear to Tread had some success in the early 1960s, while Forster was still alive. In 1991 British director Charles Sturridge (of Brideshead Revisited fame) brought out a film version. Five of Forster's six novels have been made into films, and of them all this is perhaps the most accurate rendition of its original. Given its melodramatic plot and the overt operatic content, the most appropriate adaptation of the novel to another medium might prove to be the 1999 opera Where Angels Fear to Tread by Mark Lanz Weiser and Roger Brunyate. The text of this novel is available for free online at Project Gutenberg. See also An Interpretation of E. M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread.
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