Where Angels Fear to Tread

Where Angels Fear to Tread is

• a novel (1905) by E. M. Forster originally entitled Monteriano; and

• a film (1991) by Charles Sturridge starring Rupert Graves, Giovanni Guidelli, Helen Mirren, Helena Bonham Carter, and Judy Davis.

On a journey to Tuscany with her young friend and travelling companion Caroline Abbott (Bonham Carter), widowed Lilia Herriton (Mirren) falls in love with both Italy and a handsome Italian much younger than herself, and decides to stay. Furious, her dead husband's family send Lilia's brother-in-law and his sister to Italy to prevent a misalliance, but they arrive too late. Lilia marries the Italian and in due course becomes pregnant again. When she dies giving birth to her child, the Herritons consider it both their right and their duty to kidnap the infant so that he can be raised as an Englishman.

Similarly to A Room with a View, both Italy and its inhabitants are presented as exuding an irresistible charm, to which eventually also Caroline Abbott succumbs. However, there is a tragic ending to the story.

The film is often erroneously considered to have been made by the Merchant-Ivory team (see A Room with a View and Howards End).