# Miss Lavish — A Room With a View character guide

> Miss Lavish in A Room With a View by E. M. Forster.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Lavish, Eleanor Lavish, Miss Eleanor Lavish

**First appearance:** 0000-part-i-i-the-bertolini

## Snapshot

A flamboyant novelist who mines Florence for local colour, warns she will be unmerciful to British tourists, and keeps Lucy on trial for the role of ingenue.

## Who they are

Miss Lavish holds court in Santa Croce and on carriage drives, spinning plots of love, murder, and abduction while declaring her sympathies lie with Italians rather than her own countrymen. She is emancipated, in Miss Bartlett's approving phrase, yet her appetite for other people's lives makes her a quiet menace to anyone within earshot of a good story. Her presence sharpens the novel's comedy about tourism, art, and the way visitors consume the places and people they claim to understand.

## In the story

### [The Bertolini](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/chapters/part-i-i-the-bertolini)

A clever lady at the pension who enthusiastically advises the newcomers to visit Prato.

### [In Santa Croce with No Baedeker](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/chapters/part-i-ii-in-santa-croce-with-no-baedeker)

Abandons Lucy in the Piazza to chase a 'local-colour box'; takes Lucy's Baedeker with her.

### [III: Music, Violets, and the Letter S](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/chapters/part-i-iii-music-violets-and-the-letter-s)

Mentioned as the owner of the cigarette-case; her novel was lost in a landslide at Amalfi, leading her to take up smoking.

### [Possibilities of a Pleasant Outing](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/chapters/part-i-v-possibilities-of-a-pleasant-outing)

Eager to exploit the murder for her novel, presses Lucy for details, and is later doubted by Lucy as a great artist.

### [VI: The Reverend Arthur Beebe, the Reverend Cuthbert Eager, Mr. Emerson, Mr. George Emerson, Miss Eleanor Lavish, Miss Charlotte Bartlett, and Miss Lucy Honeychurch Drive Out in Carriages to See a View; Italians Drive Them](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/chapters/part-i-vi-the-reverend-arthur-beebe-the-reverend-cuthbert-eager-mr-emerson-mr-george-emerson-miss-eleanor-lavish-miss-charlotte-bartlett-and-miss-lucy-honeychurch-drive-out-in-carriages-to-see-a-view-italians-drive-them)

Initially supports the lovers' freedom as 'an adventure,' but backs down when Mr. Eager insists; engages in a scholarly dispute about Alessio Baldovinetti.

### [XI: In Mrs. Vyse’s Well-Appointed Flat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/chapters/part-ii-xi-in-mrs-vyse-s-well-appointed-flat)

Reported by Charlotte to have seen George Emerson near Summer Street.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/characters/miss_lavish
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_room_with_a_view_se/characters