WI E.M. Forster published Maurice in the 1920's?

[proximefactum]

The English author E.M. Forster wrote a novella titled Maurice between 1912 to 1914. His novella concerns the gay love affairs of a young man (early to mid 20's-ish) named Maurice Hall. The novella is tame and almost prudish by modern standards. Sex is never mentioned but glossed over with euphemisms. What's remarkable about the novella is not its discussion of homosexual love but rather the vivid depictions of a young man struggling to make sense of his sexuality in an extremely hostile social environment.

Forster circulated drafts of his novella among prominent gay men in the underground "out" gay community in England. He also disseminated his work among avantgarde English authors. He decided not to publish the work. The first edition was published posthumously in 1971, a year after his death.

Interestingly, D.H. Lawrence read a draft of Maurice. Some literary scholars contend that Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)incorporated many themes from Maurice, especially sexual love across the rigid class divisions of that time. As is well known, early editions of Lady Chatterley's Lover were printed in continental Europe. The restrictive obscenity laws of Britain, the Commonwealth, and the United States precluded the publishing or importation of a work laced with explicit sexual acts and prominent cursing. A fully unexpurgated version of Lawrence's novel did not appear in Britain until the early 1960's and only after a defeat of obscenity laws in court.

WI Forster went the Lawrence route and published Maurice through a continental European publishing house? Would his action have contributed to a greater consciousness about homosexuality in Britain and in Europe? Would Forster have been fined or imprisoned in England after the inevitable clandestine introduction of the novel in England? Forster was out in some underground gay and English intellectual circles. He certainly was closeted to society at large. Widespread exposure of Maurice and a subsequent obscenity trial might have jeopardized his stellar literary career and might have ruined his prominent place in the English literature of his day.

 

[Magniac]

Well, Brideshead Revisited was published immediately postwar, so the subject isn't prohibited before the final lifting of censorship that saw 'Lady Chatterley' finally become available in Britain (or Boston, for that matter).

I doubt the lord chamberlain in the thirties would be against the publication of a book that is as chaste as you say Forster's is. EM isn't about to have his very own vacation in Reading Gaol if he decides to publish this book.

Forster's reputation would suffer. He's a man from the Victorian and Edwardian ages, and his readership expected a certain amount of refinement from his work. I know there's a rape in 'A Passage To India', but that's treated as an abhorrence. The promotion of same sex love by a major pre-modernist author? Evelyn Waugh is a child of art deco and flappers, he can get away with that after WWII, and not have his career suffer. Pre-war EM Forster is another matter entirely.

There are are obviously several very good reasons Forster never published this. Unless he experiences a personality change that makes him want to out himself artistically, as Walt Whitman did in the 19th century with Leaves of Grass, then Maurice remains undercovers.

 

[proximefactum]

Well, Brideshead Revisited was published immediately postwar, so the subject isn't prohibited before the final lifting of censorship that saw 'Lady Chatterley' finally become available in Britain (or Boston, for that matter).

There's been a "rehabilitation" of Brideshead in -- of all circles -- traditionalist/conservative Catholicism! Almost ASB, if you ask me. Yes, I know that there is a strong Catholic element to Evelyn Waugh's work. Nevertheless, Brideshead is a friggin' barely veiled gay romance novel! Still, there are some Catholics that would like to make the novel into a Catholic conversion story and whitewash the homoerotic overtones. Then again, traditional (Latin Mass) Catholicism has a noticeable gay contingency, so the rehabilitation isn't all that surprising. Still, one way to get a trad/con Catholic upset is to talk about the homoerotic elements of Brideshead. They'll quote chapter and verse to argue against the dread possibility that their beloved novel is partly about dudes loving dudes. Many in the Catholic high church set don't hide their sexuality well (maybe they're not trying?).

Forster's reputation would suffer. He's a man from the Victorian and Edwardian ages, and his readership expected a certain amount of refinement from his work. I know there's a rape in 'A Passage To India', but that's treated as an abhorrence. The promotion of same sex love by a major pre-modernist author? Evelyn Waugh is a child of art deco and flappers, he can get away with that after WWII, and not have his career suffer. Pre-war EM Forster is another matter entirely.

There are are obviously several very good reasons Forster never published this. Unless he experiences a personality change that makes him want to out himself artistically, as Walt Whitman did in the 19th century with Leaves of Grass, then Maurice remains undercovers.

I see your point about the Edwardian/post WWII generation split. E.M. Forster was friendly with post WWII authors, even if he was well into middle age by the end of the Second World War. Pseudonymity would not have worked even in the postwar period. I'm sure Forster's true identity would have leaked.

It's not unsurprising that the public estimation of homosexuality made a small but significant leap forward from the turn of the last century to the postwar WWII period. Forster did live to see the Wolfenden Report in the late 50's and the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1967, but he already quite elderly and well into his legacy.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I see what you mean with things getting tough for Forster. Nonetheless, maybe, for the purposes of this thread, we shouldn't think too much about whether or not EM Foster needs to go through a personality change to have the work published. Maybe copies leak out in mass publication, initially against his desire, but eventually sees little choice but to take credit for it. Just a suggestion.

More interesting than society's effect on Forster is Forster's effect on society. Does the Wolfenden Report or its equivalent still take until 1957, or might Britain see something 20 years or so earlier? It would be really interesting if you could get a gay rights movement going sometime before Hitler invades Poland, say.

 

[Magniac]

There's been a "rehabilitation" of Brideshead in -- of all circles -- traditionalist/conservative Catholicism! Almost ASB, if you ask me.

Really? I can imagine a very socially liberal gay Catholic like Andrew Sullivan, but traditionalists and proselytizers? They must be impressed by Waugh's status as a political reactionary.

I see your point about the Edwardian/post WWII generation split. E.M. Forster was friendly with post WWII authors, even if he was well into middle age by the end of the Second World War. Pseudonymity would not have worked even in the postwar period. I'm sure Forster's true identity would have leaked.

Well, if you look at the Bloomsbury circle it's as early as post-WWI that Forster was mixing with writers who were comfortable with the subject in their own writing.

 

[proximefactum]

I see what you mean with things getting tough for Forster. Nonetheless, maybe, for the purposes of this thread, we shouldn't think too much about whether or not EM Foster needs to go through a personality change to have the work published. Maybe copies leak out in mass publication, initially against his desire, but eventually sees little choice but to take credit for it. Just a suggestion.

No, I don't think Forster should have changed anything about himself. He would have been prosecuted for homosexuality (the acts were crimes, not the "orientation".) Perhaps there may have been an obscenity trial, though. An earlier obscenity trial about homosexual themes might have spurred public discussion and debate about sexuality. If anything, Maurice would have made it easier for Lawrence to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover. Perhaps other authors could venture forward with candid novels with overt sexual themes.

More interesting than society's effect on Forster is Forster's effect on society. Does the Wolfenden Report or its equivalent still take until 1957, or might Britain see something 20 years or so earlier? It would be really interesting if you could get a gay rights movement going sometime before Hitler invades Poland, say.

A TL that compares the German and English gay rights movement in the interwar period would be interesting. Forster himself notes in Maurice that English doctors were well behind the Germans and Americans in an awareness of homosexuality as a psychological phenomenon and not merely as a biblical prohibition.

Really? I can imagine a very socially liberal gay Catholic like Andrew Sullivan, but traditionalists and proselytizers? They must be impressed by Waugh's status as a political reactionary.

Catholic traditionalists are looking for English convert role models. Waugh fits because he was nominally married and was critical of the liturgical reforms of 1960's Catholicism. Catholic traditionalists harbor a bizarre fetish for Edwardian and interwar social life. Many consider these periods emblematic of "proper" women's roles. Trads desire an idyllic and non-existent period that might protect traditionalism from the effects of the "sexual revolution".

 

[Magniac]

I have to admit I only ever read the first chapters of 'Brideshead Revisited', and have never seen the television adaption---I don't think I'd even heard of 'Maurice'.

How explicit are the homosexual themes of both novels? You say that the gay sex in Forster's book is dealt with euphemistically.

I honestly don't know what it takes to get charged with obscenity during the eras we're talking about. I understand why a war novel which uses the f-word profusely gets its author prosecuted in Australia in the early fifties, but I don't understand why 'Ulysses' is prosecuted for being pornography (not that I've read that novel either. Who has?)

 

[proximefactum]

I have to admit I only ever read the first chapters of 'Brideshead Revisited', and have never seen the television adaption---I don't think I'd even heard of 'Maurice'.

How explicit are the homosexual themes of both novels? You say that the gay sex in Forster's book is dealt with euphemistically.

I honestly don't know what it takes to get charged with obscenity during the eras we're talking about. I understand why a war novel which uses the f-word profusely gets its author prosecuted in Australia in the early fifties, but I don't understand why 'Ulysses' is prosecuted for being pornography (not that I've read that novel either. Who has?)

You should have no problem finding any one of the books in this thread in a well-stocked public library or a university library. Chain bookstores should have them as well (and probably in thrift editions). If you have the time, read them. Heck, read anything and everything that's controversial and not nailed down. Self-education is the potent antidote to fear and ignorance in society. I've regarded the index librorum prohibitorum (the now-defunct Index of the Catholic Church) as a checklist. I want to make sure I've read everything that I'm not supposed to read as a good, faithful Catholic.

The BBC made a long serial of Brideshead Revisited that's rather accurate. Maurice has been adapted as a British production (and maybe an American one as well). I'm sure that third-world nations with low "enhanced interrogation" budgets use Ulysses on screen to pry sensitive information from "enemy combatants".

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

A TL that compares the German and English gay rights movement in the interwar period would be interesting. Forster himself notes in Maurice that English doctors were well behind the Germans and Americans in an awareness of homosexuality as a psychological phenomenon and not merely as a biblical prohibition.

A preview of things to come?

 

[Claire63]

A late response to this discussion, but I hope helpful:

1) To date, there has only been one (excellent) film adaptation of Maurice (1987): British production, British cast, but directed by an American (James Ivory). Also, more recently, a stage version (or versions?) in both the UK and US.

2) A point not yet mentioned – and which may make a difference to the answer to the original question – is that Forster produced several different manuscript versions of Maurice between 1914 and 1959. Not all of these survive, but nature of the differences between those that do is explained very fully in the notes of the Abinger Edition of Maurice, edited by Philip Gardner (London: Andre Deutsch, 1999), which I highly recommend.

These versions differ in the wording and relative explicitness of the key sexual scene(s) – and, contrary to some claims you may read elsewhere, the (surviving) 1914 version is a little more explicit and suggestive than the 1971 published novel. I’m not sure why, as Forster’s heaviest revisions in 1914–1959 were to the Maurice/Alec relationship. The explanation may be that the 1914 version could be more explicit because it was written only for personal use and private circulation – but it would also therefore, perhaps, have been less publishable in the 1920s than the 1959/published manuscript. (Forster also wrote more explicit stories between the 1910s and 1960s. Some he burned, others were published posthumously.)

 

[The Uchronian]

A late response to this discussion, but I hope helpful:

1) To date, there has only been one (excellent) film adaptation of Maurice (1987): British production, British cast, but directed by an American (James Ivory). Also, more recently, a stage version (or versions?) in both the UK and US.

2) A point not yet mentioned – and which may make a difference to the answer to the original question – is that Forster produced several different manuscript versions of Maurice between 1914 and 1959. Not all of these survive, but nature of the differences between those that do is explained very fully in the notes of the Abinger Edition of Maurice, edited by Philip Gardner (London: Andre Deutsch, 1999), which I highly recommend.

These versions differ in the wording and relative explicitness of the key sexual scene(s) – and, contrary to some claims you may read elsewhere, the (surviving) 1914 version is a little more explicit and suggestive than the 1971 published novel. I’m not sure why, as Forster’s heaviest revisions in 1914–1959 were to the Maurice/Alec relationship. The explanation may be that the 1914 version could be more explicit because it was written only for personal use and private circulation – but it would also therefore, perhaps, have been less publishable in the 1920s than the 1959/published manuscript. (Forster also wrote more explicit stories between the 1910s and 1960s. Some he burned, others were published posthumously.)

Hi Claire! Welcome to the AH.com forums.
In all honesty, he might be able to get his novel published but it might take a great deal of trouble to do so successfully.