Where Angels Fear to Tread

An impulsive English widow’s trip to Italy stirs up trouble for her uptight in-laws in this classic novel by the author of A Passage to India.

Leaving dreary England behind, thirty-three-year-old widow Lilia Herriton travels to exotic Italy where she is soon engaged to a handsome, younger Italian man. Her late husband’s family is not pleased, and they try to bring Lilia home—but fail. After Lilia gives birth to a son, her in-laws once again intercede. Philip Herriton, his sister Harriet, and their friend Caroline are determined not to let the child grow up in such uncivilized surroundings. But as cultures clash in this tragicomedy of manners, their mission takes an unexpected turn or two . . .

Originally published in 1905, Where Angels Fear to Tread was E. M. Forster’s first novel. It has been adapted for radio and the opera, and as a 1991 film starring Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter, and Judy Davis. Forster went on to receive great acclaim for novels such as A Room with a View, Howard’s End, and A Passage to India.

“A whole and mature work dominated by a fresh and commanding intelligence.” —Lionel Trilling, leading literary critic and essayist