The chronology of 'Maurice.'

When Maurice was finally published posthumously in 1971, it had been lying around in manuscript and typescript for almost sixty years. According to Forster's biographer, P. N. Furbank, it had during those years undergone three revisions - in 1919, when Forster returned from his wartime work in Egypt and his love affair with Mohammed el Adl, in 1932, the year of Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson's death, and finally in 1959-60 when the question of publication was being considered. At this point he wrote the 'Terminal Note' which appeared in the 1971 publication. There he claims, 'In its original form . . . Maurice dates from 1913' (235). The novel was begun in September 1913 after Forster visited Edward Carpenter and his partner George Merrill; it was finished, at least in its first version, by July 1914.

In none of his other novels is Forster so specific throughout about the age of his protagonist and in none of the other novels is there such continual reference to contemporary and near-contemporary history. Later in the 'Terminal Note' Forster declares that 'the novel's action-date is about 1912' (239). Since the duration of the action is a little over ten years we must assume that 1912 marks a significant point of the plot, and we suggest that this is the summer when everything goes wrong for …