Edward Morgan Forster, though best known as a novelist, also distinguished himself in other genres, including the short story. His first collection of stories as well as four of his six novels appeared between 1905 and 1911, his most prolific years as a writer of fiction. This period also included his writing of a posthumously published novel about homosexual relationships; his last novel, A Passage to India, was published more than a decade later in 1924, followed in 1928 by the appearance of his second collection of stories.

Though Forster's earlier novels, especially Howards End (1910), received favorable reviews, A Passage to India secured his position as a major modern writer and inspired important scholarly studies of his fiction. After completing this most acclaimed novel, Forster turned increasingly to nonfiction, though he also wrote but did not publish stories with homosexual themes. During the last two decades of his life he was often...