Part one

The novel is set in the early 1900s as upper-middle-class English women are beginning to lead more independent, adventurous lives. In the first part Miss Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her overly fussy spinster cousin and chaperone, Miss Charlotte Bartlett. The novel opens in Florence with the women complaining about their rooms at the Pensione Bertolini. They were promised rooms with a view of the River Arno but instead have ones overlooking a drab courtyard. Another guest, Mr Emerson, interrupts their "peevish wrangling" by spontaneously offering to swap rooms. He and his son, George, both have rooms with views of the Arno and he argues, "Women like looking at a view; men don’t." Charlotte rejects the offer, partly because she looks down on the Emersons' unconventional behaviour and because she fears it would place them under an "unseemly obligation". However another guest, Mr Beebe, an Anglican clergyman, persuades Charlotte to accept the offer; Charlotte suggests that the Emersons are socialists.

The following day Lucy spends a "long morning" in the Basilica of Santa Croce, accompanied by Miss Eleanor Lavish, a novelist who promises to lead her on an adventure. Lavish confiscates Lucy's Baedeker guidebook, proclaiming she will show Lucy the "true Italy". On the way to Santa Croce the two take a wrong turn and get lost. After drifting for hours through various streets and piazzas they eventually make it to the square in front of the church, only for Lavish (who still has Lucy's Baedeker) to abandon the younger woman to pursue an old acquaintance.^[1]

Inside the church Lucy runs into the Emersons. Although the other visitors find Mr Emerson's behaviour somewhat unrefined, Lucy discovers she likes them both; she repeatedly encounters them in Florence. While touring Piazza della Signoria Lucy and George Emerson separately witness a murder. Overcome by its gruesomeness Lucy faints and is aided by George. Recovered, she asks him to retrieve the photographs she dropped near the murder scene. George finds them but as they are covered in blood he throws them into the river before telling Lucy; Lucy observes how boyish George is. As they stop by the River Arno before returning to the pensione they engage in a personal conversation.

Lucy decides to avoid George, partly because she is confused by her feelings and also to placate Charlotte, who grows wary of the eccentric Emersons. She overheard Mr Eager, a clergyman, saying that Mr Emerson, "murdered his wife in the sight of God".

Later in the week Mr Beebe, Mr Eager, the Emersons, Miss Lavish, Charlotte and Lucy go on a day trip to Fiesole, a scenic area above Florence, driven in two carriages by Italian drivers. One driver is permitted to have a pretty girl he claims is his sister sitting next to him on the box seat. When he kisses her Mr Eager promptly orders her to leave. In the other carriage Mr Emerson remarks how it is defeat rather than victory to part two people in love.

On a hillside Lucy abandons Miss Lavish and Miss Bartlett to their gossip and goes searching for Mr Beebe. Misunderstanding Lucy's awkward Italian, the driver leads her to where George is admiring the view. Overcome by Lucy's beauty amongst a field of violets, he takes her in his arms and kisses her. However they are interrupted by Charlotte, who is shocked and upset but mostly is ruffled by her own failure as a chaperone. Lucy promises Charlotte that she will say nothing to her mother about the "insult" George has paid her. The two women leave for Rome the next day before Lucy can say goodbye to George.

Part two

In Rome Lucy spends time with Cecil Vyse, whom she knew in England. Cecil twice proposes to Lucy in Italy; she rejects him both times. As Part Two begins, Lucy has returned to Surrey, England, to her family home, Windy Corner. Cecil proposes yet again and this time she accepts. Cecil is a sophisticated London aesthete whose rank and class make him a desirable match despite his despising country society; he is a rather comic figure, who is snobbish and gives himself pretentious airs.

The vicar, Mr Beebe, announces that a local villa has been leased; the new tenants are the Emersons, who, after a chance meeting with Cecil in London, learned about the villa being available. Cecil enticed them to come to the village as a comeuppance to the villa's landlord, Sir Harry Otway, who Cecil (who believes himself to be very democratic) thinks is a snob. Lucy is angry with Cecil, as she had tentatively arranged for the elderly Misses Alan, who had also been guests at the Pensione Bertolini, to rent the villa.

Fate takes an ironic turn as Mr Beebe introduces Lucy's brother, Freddy, to the Emersons. Freddy invites George for "a bathe" in a nearby pond in the woods. Freddy, George and Mr Beebe go there. Freddy and George undress and jump in, eventually persuading Mr Beebe to join them. The men enjoy themselves, frolicking and splashing in and out of the pond and running through the bushes until Lucy, her mother and Cecil, having taken a short-cut through the woods during their walk, come upon them.

Freddy later invites George to play tennis at Windy Corner. Although Lucy is initially mortified by facing both George and Cecil she resolves to be gracious. Cecil annoys everyone by pacing around and reading aloud from a light romance novel that contains a scene suspiciously reminiscent of George's kissing Lucy in Fiesole. George catches Lucy alone in the garden and kisses her again. Lucy realises that the novel was written by Miss Lavish (the writer-acquaintance from Florence) and that Charlotte must thus have told her about the kiss.

Furious with Charlotte for betraying her secret, Lucy forces her cousin to watch as she orders George to leave Windy Corner and never return. George argues that Cecil sees Lucy only as an "object for the shelf" and will never love her enough to grant her independence, whereas he loves her for who she is. Lucy is moved but remains firm. Later that evening, after Cecil again rudely declines to play tennis, Lucy sees Cecil for what he truly is and ends their engagement. She decides to flee to Greece with the two Misses Alan.

Meanwhile George, unable to bear being around Lucy, is moving his father back to London, unaware Lucy has broken off her engagement. Shortly before Lucy's departure she accidentally encounters Mr Emerson at Mr Beebe's house. He is unaware that Lucy is no longer engaged and Lucy is unable to lie to him. With open, honest talk Mr Emerson strips away her defences, forcing her to admit she has been in love with George all along. He also mentions how his wife had "gone under"—lost the will to live—because she feared that George's contracting typhoid at the age of 12 was a punishment for his not being baptized. Her fear was the result of a visit by the stern clergyman Mr Eager, and the incident explains Eager's later claim that Mr Emerson had "murdered his wife in the sight of God".

The novel ends in Florence, where George and Lucy have eloped without Mrs Honeychurch's consent. However Lucy has learned that Charlotte knew that Mr Emerson was at Mr Beebe's that fateful day and had not discouraged nor prevented her from going in and encountering him. Although Lucy "had alienated Windy Corner, perhaps for ever" (although the appendix implies a reconciliation with her family), the story ends with the promise of lifelong love for both her and George.

Appendix

In some editions an appendix to the novel is given entitled ‘A View without a Room’, written by Forster in 1958 relating what occurred between Lucy and George after the events of the novel. It is Forster's afterthought to the novel, and he quite clearly states that "I cannot think where George and Lucy live." They were quite comfortable until the end of the First World War, with Charlotte Bartlett leaving them all her money in her will, but the war ruined their happiness according to Forster. George became a conscientious objector and lost his government job. He was given non-combatant duties to avoid prison. This left Mrs Honeychurch deeply upset with her son-in-law. Mr Emerson died during the war, shortly after having a confrontation with police over Lucy's playing the music of a German composer, Beethoven, on the piano. Eventually the couple had three children, two girls and a boy, and moved to Carshalton from Highgate to find a home. Despite their wanting to move into Windy Corner after Mrs Honeychurch's death, Freddy sold the house to support his family, as he was "an unsuccessful but prolific doctor".

Immediately after the outbreak of the Second World War George enlisted, seeing the need to stop Hitler and the Nazi regime. He was unfaithful to Lucy during his time at war. Lucy was left homeless when her flat in Watford was bombed and the same happened to her married daughter in Nuneaton. George rose to the rank of corporal but was taken prisoner by the Italians in Africa. Once the fascist government in Italy had fallen George returned to Florence. Finding it "in a mess", he was unable to find the Pensione Bertolini, stating "the View was still there" and that "the room must be there, too, but could not be found." Forster ends by stating that George and Lucy await the Third World War, but with no word on where they live, for even he does not know.

He adds that Cecil served in "Information or whatever the withholding of information was then entitled" during the war and was able to trick an Alexandria hostess into playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata by claiming he was Belgian, not German.