E. M. Forster: Maurice

Abstract

E. M. Forster (1879–1970) was brought up by his mother in Hertfordshire and later Kent, his father having died when he was a baby. He read Classics and History at Cambridge, and began to teach Latin at a working men’s club in Bloomsbury, London. He travelled widely in Italy, Austria and Greece, and went to Germany as a childrens’ tutor. His first novel Where Angels Fear to Tread, was published in 1905, but only with Howards End (1910), the third novel, did he begin to have commercial success. He went to India for two protracted visits (1912 and 1921) and in 1924 published his most successful work A Passage to India. He cultivated literary acquaintances with Forrest Reid, Constantine Cavafy, Edward Carpenter and J. R. Ackerley, the last of whom became a life-long friend. Only in middle age did he begin any kind of sex life, which was mostly with tough working-class types, whom he preferred. His closest friend in the second part of his life was the policeman Bob Buckingham, whom he met in 1929.