For his research fellowship with the CBCP, Lawrence Jones will explore E. M. Forster\u2019s (1879-1970) publishing activities in the U.S. He will conduct a detailed analysis of correspondence held in The Hogarth Press Archive at the University of Reading to highlight Forster\u2019s efforts to establish and maintain his transatlantic profile in the 1920s. Lawrence\u2019s research aims to cast new light on Forster\u2019s career and the wider networks of British publishing in the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n
Lawrence is in the final year of his PhD at the University of Reading. Drawing on archival material such as notebooks, sketches, and holograph manuscripts, his thesis considers how E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) revised their depictions of the lower middle class in a selection of their novels. It uses a genetic criticism methodology to try and get a deeper understanding of Forster\u2019s and Woolf\u2019s representations of, and attitudes towards, class through their writing process. By conducting a historically attentive and comparative reading of manuscript materials, his thesis aims to show how the aesthetic and ideological choices made by Forster and Woolf during the drafting phase influenced their portraits of clerks and teachers.<\/p>\n