Maurice

A stunning new edition of Forster’s classic queer novel, with a new introduction by Colm Tóibín, bestselling author of Brooklyn and Long Island

‘A monument to a moment when change seemed possible’
COLM TÓIBÍN

‘It shows the quality of a novelist at the height of his powers’
SUNDAY TIMES

‘His heart leapt alive and shook him to pieces. It cried “You love and are loved.”‘

Maurice Hall grows up in comfort and privilege near London, in a villa surrounded by pines, where all is convenience and ease. He progresses through a traditional English education, projecting an outer confidence that masks troubling questions about his unspoken desires.

At Cambridge University, Maurice meets Clive, an assured older student, with whom he enjoys a close and intense relationship. Sneaking around college, climbing through windows and skipping lectures, Maurice begins to grasp a less conventional view of the nature of love. And then, on a trip to Clive’s family estate, he meets Alec, the gamekeeper, and his emotional and sexual awakening reaches its height, opening up the possibility of a life that strays from the path he was raised to follow. But can Maurice overcome societal pressures, self-doubt and heartbreak to find happiness?

Forster completed Maurice in 1914 but felt that it could not be published in his lifetime. It was not until 1971, the year after Forster’s death, that the novel was finally published.