Philip Gardner, ed.
The Journals and Diaries of E. M. Forster
Three volumes, 813pp.
Pickering and Chatto, 2011
┬г275/$495.00

тАЬA writer of fiction, literary criticism, travel narratives and libretti, Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) is best known for his beautifully-structured novels which held a mirror up to the English class system. Though not a prolific novelist, Forster is nonetheless recognized as one of the giants of twentieth-century literature. This fascinating collection of diaries, travel journals and itineraries brings together all previously unpublished material Forster wrote which can be classed as 'memoir'. A frank and lively diarist, Forster was not a dogged one, and his entries over the years are irregular and eclectic. Despite this the archival material, here newly transcribed, is substantial. Covering the period 1895-1967, the diaries and journals presented in these volumes will be of immense value to scholars researching this key figure of English literature. They will also be a useful resource to those interested in travel during the first half of the twentieth century, as well as the wider literary and social history of the period.тАЭ
http://www.pickeringchatto.com/major_wo ... _m_forster


Peter Parker
E. M. Forster unlocked
Vivid phrases, rounds of golf and how societyтАЩs laws against homosexuality wasted ForsterтАЩs time

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 174358.ece

тАЬGiven the importance in ForsterтАЩs life of both India and Egypt, the decision to omit his Indian diaries and notes of 1912 and 1921 and his тАЬLetterтАЭ to and notes about the recently deceased el Adl, written between 1922 and 1927, seems misjudged. It leaves large gaps тАУ Forster even indicates in the Locked Diary where the Indian diary of 1912 should go тАУ and is insufficiently excused on GardnerтАЩs grounds that this material has already been published in the Abinger Editions of The Hill of Devi and Alexandria respectively. While Alexandria is still in print, The Hill of Devi was published well over a quarter of a century ago and has long been unavailable. These exclusions are at least acknowledged: more worrying are the silent omissions.

Where, for example, is the тАЬSex DiaryтАЭ that Moffat describes as тАЬmarooned on its ownтАЭ within the Locked Diary? This consists of three highly detailed recollections of childhood and adolescent sexual experience, and a fourth, incomplete section subtitled тАЬMy WritingsтАЭ. Also missing and unacknowledged is a memoir of Charlie Day, with whom Forster became involved in 1928. Forster described the relationship in the Locked Diary as тАЬthe third surprise of my life and the greatest, though not the most profoundтАЭ, but Day is not even allotted a biographical note. Both items have appeared, along with тАЬOther Memoirs and MemorandaтАЭ (all but one omitted by Gardner), in Jeffrey M. HeathтАЩs now even more invaluable The Creator as Critic and Other Writings by E. M. Forster (2008). If prior publication is the reason for excluding these items from The Journals and Diaries, then Gardner ought surely to say so. This criterion has not, after all, prevented him from including other pieces that appear in HeathтАЩs volume either in full (тАЬIncidents of WarтАЭ) or in part (тАЬWest HackhurstтАЭ).

What many of these omissions have in common is sex, so one runs the risk of being thought prurient if one laments their absence. Forster would almost certainly disagree. Since he destroyed many of his papers, including a number of his тАЬindecentтАЭ short stories, it seems safe to assume that anything in his possession he did not consign to the flames he intended to survive him. They are very much part of the story. As he wrote in the Locked Diary: тАЬI should like to record тАУ and why not here тАУ that during nearly 70 years I have been interested in lustful thoughts, writing, and sometimes actions, and do not believe they have done me or anyone else harmтАЭ. He also wanted to record (in the section excluded by Gardner) тАЬhow annoyed I am with Society for wasting my time by making homosexuality criminalтАЭ.




E.M. Forster: The Obelisk
Foreword by Amit Chaudhuri
Hesperus Press, 2009, pp. 169
ISBN: 9781843914365

The Obelisk
The Life to Come
Dr Woolacott
Arthur Snatchfold
What Does It Matter? A Morality
The Classical Annex
The Torque
The Other Boat.

From "The Life to Come and other stories" (1972, posthumous)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/no ... ter-review
http://chromajournal.blogspot.com/2010/ ... d-new.html
http://www.mantex.co.uk/2010/03/08/the- ... t-stories/