Good Morning, Midnight (1939)

In 1908 E.M. Forster published Room With a View, where the desired view is not of a courtyard but of a free and flowing river. Six years later Gertrude Stein published Tender Buttons (1914), a book that ends with "Rooms".

Another notable "room" writer is Jean Rhys, in particular her novel Good Morning, Midnight (1939). It opens with a room:

"Quite like old times," the room says. "Yes? No?"

There are two beds, a big one for madame and a smaller one on the opposite side for monsieur. The wash-basin is shut off by a curtain. It is a larger room, the smell of cheap hotels faint, almost imperceptible. The street outside is narrow, cobblestoned, going sharply uphill and ending in a flight of steps. What they call an impasse.

I have been here five days. I have decided on a place to eat in at midday, a place to eat in at night, a place to have my drink in after dinner. I have arranged my little life.