E. M. Forster’s novel Howards End (1910) deals with codes of conduct, social conventions, and complex relationships in turn-of-the-century England. The tale involves three families: the Wilcoxes, wealthy merchants who made their fortune in the colonies, the Basts, an impoverished young couple from a working class background, and the vibrant Schlegel sisters Margaret, Helen, and Tibby, whose cultural endeavours resemble those of the literary Bloomsbury Group in their love of art, books, and travel. Among the colorful characters are the Wilcox matriarch, Ruth, and the "fallen woman" Jacky Bast. The idealistic Schlegel sisters try to help the struggling Basts and to cure the deeply ingrained class prejudices of the Wilcox family.