Written in 1913 to 1914 and published only after Forster's death, this novel follows Maurice Hall, an ordinary middle-class Englishman, from schooldays through Cambridge and into a career in London. As he grows up, he struggles to understand his own desires in a society that allows no room for them. His friendships and loves lead him to question respectability and what a truthful life might look like. It is a tender, direct story, notable for its hopeful tone and its place in the history of English fiction about love between men.
Quotes
Puberty was there, but not intelligence, and manhood was stealing on him, as it always must, in a trance.
Then darkness rolled up again, the darkness that is primeval but not eternal, and yields to its own painful dawn.
He had been such a man all the evening, but the old feeling came over him as soon as his mother had kissed him good night.
He knew what it was, it reminded him of nothing horrible. But he was afraid.