E. M. Forster, The Eternal Moment

Peter Childs (Newman University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.08: English Writing and Culture of the early Twentieth Century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Chris Baldick (Goldsmiths College, University of London), Peter Childs (Newman University), Louise McDonald (Newman University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1928

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story Collection

Resources

E. M. Forster's second collection of short stories was published seventeen years after his first, The Celestial Omnibus (1911). Like the earlier collection, The Eternal Moment (1928) is an assembly of six stories of varying length but amounting to a little over a hundred pages in all. Though published after A Passage to India (1924) they were all written by 1914.

The first story is a dystopian vision of the future called “The Machine Stops”, which, until the last minute, was to have been the title of the whole book. In this unusual piece of science fiction, after Wells but prior to Huxley and Orwell, machinery has taken over and functions perfectly to meet the basic needs of humans who are isolated and …

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914 words

Citation: Childs, Peter. "The Eternal Moment". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=952, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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