Possibly my new favourite book of the year so far. I absolutely loved this one - beautiful, moving, such a powerful read.

If Dorian Gray is the dramatic, scandal-creating gay classic, than Maurice is the snobbish yet emotionally moving gay classic. Written in 1913-14 but only published sixty years later, this is a book that is impressive - not because of its romance - but because of the character's personal journey towards self acceptance.Began 1913, finished 1914. Dedicated to a happier year. With this heartbreaking opening statement, the story begins. We get to follow Maurice Hall as he grows up and starts to...

Perfect! There is probably nothing I can write that hasn't been written before about this work from one of our great English authors. It has no doubt been criticised, scrutinised, analysed, investigated, praised and acclaimed, I will just write about how the book made me feel. The style of English was so refreshing to read. A style and mastery that has been long since forgotten. It has a beauty to it that flows and melts coming from an era where conversation really was an art. Where every word w...

One of E.M. Forster's lesser-known novels, Maurice is a classic gay love story that was ahead of its time.Wait, what? I’m not only reading a backlist title but also a classic? Look at me, expanding my horizons!! Maurice was written in 1913 and 1914, but Forster (author of A Room with a View and Howard's End , among others) knew that publishing it would destroy his career. He stipulated it couldn’t be released until after he died. It was published in 1971.While certainly much of the...

4 StarsI’m not well versed in historic stories of the British upper class, but I’m happy to say that despite the fear, despite having to hide, Maurice finds love, grabs on, and refuses to let go.Though published posthumously, all the stars for having been written at all in a time of blatant unacceptance.

Vladimir Nabokov wrote in Pnin: Some people—and I am one of them—hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm. Doom should not jam. The avalanche stopping in its tracks a few feet above the cowering village behaves not only unnaturally but unethically. This is true for me as well. While of course I was cheering for the titular hero through the course of his internal and external struggle for identity, I can't help but feel, after finishing the book "well, that was very nice, but life is

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |3.5 stars (rounded up) “No tradition overawed the boys. No convention settled what was poetic, what absurd. They were concerned with a passion that few English minds have admitted, and so created untrammelled. Something of exquisite beauty arose in the mind of each at last, something unforgettable and eternal, but built of the humblest scraps of speech and from the simplest emotions.”There is much to be admired in E.M. Forster's Maurice. While it saddening to think...

2022 update:I appreciate this novel more on this reading, fresh from experiencing the story from the gamekeeper's point of view in Alec, and also fortified with insights from Forster himself in his Terminal Note in Maurice, written in 1960. Forster credits Edward Carpenter for his contributions; I looked into his life as well. All of this to say that these sources were bubbling in the background as I read Maurice.It no longer reads to me as something unfinished or unpolished. Forster says "the b...

kicking off pride month with a gay classic!

listen that might be just my opinion but if a lgbt book from 1913 has a happy ending there is absolutely no excuse for gays dying in books in 2019

Maurice is a book, among few others, where I’d like to not only share a select few quotes with you, but transcribe the whole story from start to finish. I’d also love to delve deep into the story behind the book, and its creator E. M. Forster. Maurice is “his story” in two senses of the term: firstly, it is a story that was born from his mind and his hand, and secondly, from his own experiences. He begins this book with the dedication: “Begun 1913, Finished 1914, Dedicated to a Happier Year.” Fo...

“I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.” this book sent me all the way through it and I was genuinely moved by the tenderness.. the yearning... the way e.m forster wrote a happy ending for two men because he thought it was time gay men got to be happy in fiction... the explorations of class and freedom and longing... Maurice's journey to self-discover

Some people often get entangled in fiery debates on whether certain classics should still be deemed relevant or not. How do we define "relevance" if not in what human beings have always gone through in their lives, in all historical periods? Then, Maurice is definitely one of the most relevant classics nowadays. Not only it should be praised for its exquisite prose (Forster is one of the finest authors I've ever read) but it's particularly important and interesting to read from a social and from...

oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodnessoh my fucking god this was heavenly

E.M. Forster ( Howards End , A Room With A View ) finished this gay-themed novel in 1914, and though he showed it to some close friends, he didn't publish it in his lifetime. It eventually came out after his death, in the early 1970s.What a gift to have a novel about same sex love written a century ago by one of the premier 20th century British authors!When Forster penned Maurice, homosexuality was so taboo that there was no name for it. For a man to be with another man was a criminal offen...

The second dream is more difficult to convey. Nothing happened. He scarcely saw a face, scarcely heard a voice say, “That is your friend,” and then it was over, having filled him with beauty and taught him tenderness. He could die for such a friend, he would allow such a friend to die for him; they would make any sacrifice for each other, and count the world nothing, neither death nor distance nor crossness could part them, because “this is my friend.” Maurice follows the story of Maurice, a

"Begun 1913Finished 1914Dedicated to a Happier Year”Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) wrote Maurice (*) as a relatively young man, aged 34, at a time when old Europe was starting to fall apart. However, it was not published until 1971, a year after his death. Maurice is probably the first literary work of fiction to deal with male homosexuality in such an open, sincere fashion. At the time it was written, men in the UK could still be imprisoned for ‘acts of gross indecency’, as in the Oscar Wild...

Maurice is said to be Forster's homage to same-sex love. It is so. Belonging to the same lot, Forster must have felt a strong need to express himself through fiction. When he wrote it in the early part of the 20th century, the time was not ripe for its publication. Same-sex love was an offense in England, in which criminal charges can be brought, so Forster had to wait till a better time. It never came during his lifetime, although homosexuality was legalized in England by the end of the 1960s.

6/5/21Read this together with my classics book club on Patreon :).You can find me onYoutube | Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Website | The Storygraph

Sublime. Oh my God, I won't forget this book. Maurice and Alec forever.Off I go to read more E.M. Forster, though I know this was his only homosexual themed book in his esteemed career and the book was published after his death, as he'd requested to his friends, knowing the storm it would create in proper English Society.It's a great work. I am humbled before it as a writer.By the way, the author's terminal note of 1960, on homosexuality, was so brutally true and broke my heart.Yes, Maurice may