"Backgrounds and Sources" presents a rich selection of Forster's previously unpublished journals and letters and his working notes, which bring readers into the long and painstaking creative process that culminated in Howards End . "Criticism" presents a superb selection of critical writing about the novel. The critics include Edward Garnett, A. C. Benson, Katherine Mansfield, Frieda Lawrence, D. H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf, and six interpretations by Wilfred Stone, Barbara Rosecrance, Perry Meisel, Kenneth Graham, Elizabeth Langland, and Fredric Jameson. A debate on the successes and shortcomings of cinematic adaptation is presented through "Reviews of the Merchant-Ivory Film."