— On the first page of E.M Forster’s novel Howards End, which turns 100 years old this year, is a description of the English country house at the center of the book: “Old and little, and altogether delightful—red brick … all gables and wiggles” and surrounded by trees, “a very big wych-elm … pear-trees, apple-trees, and a vine.” The house was modeled on Forster’s childhood home, informally known as the Rooks Nest house. The novel’s earliest printings—by Edward Arnold in Londo