Maurice

Written in 1913-14 but not published until 1971—a year after E.M. Forster's death—Maurice stands as one of the most significant works of LGBTQ+ literature ever written and a groundbreaking exploration of same-sex love during an era when such relationships were criminalized in Britain. The novel follows Maurice Hall from his conventional upper-middle-class boyhood through his years at Cambridge, where he falls deeply in love with his aristocratic friend Clive Durham. Their intense platonic relationship awakens Maurice to his true nature, but when Clive eventually retreats into a conventional marriage, Maurice is left devastated and searching for a way to live authentically in a society that offers him no models, no support, and no hope. His subsequent encounters with hypnotist doctors, religious advisors, and finally the gamekeeper Alec Scudder lead to an ending that Forster himself called "the only happy one I've written"—a defiant vision of love triumphant over class barriers and social condemnation. Forster insisted the novel could not be published during his lifetime because "a happy ending was imperative," and he knew such an ending would be unacceptable to Edwardian moral sensibilities. Yet it is precisely this refusal to doom his protagonists that makes Maurice so revolutionary and enduringly powerful. Written with Forster's characteristic insight into human psychology and social hypocrisy, the novel offers an intimate portrait of one man's struggle toward self-acceptance while painting a vivid picture of English society's brutal suppression of sexual difference. A landmark of twentieth-century literature and essential reading for understanding both Forster's artistic vision and the hidden history of LGBTQ+ experience.