Edward Morgan Forster OM CH (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924). He also wrote numerous short stories, essays, speeches and broadcasts, as well a limited number of biographies and some pageant plays. He also co-authored the opera Billy Budd (1951). Today, he is considered one of the most successful of the Edwardian era English novelists.