SOURCE: "Edward Carpenter and E. M. Forster," in The Durham University Journal, Vol. LXXIX, No. 1, December, 1986, pp. 59-69.

In the following essay, Rahman provides a chronicle of Carpenter's interactions with, and influence on, E. M. Forster.

In the 'Terminal Note' to Maurice Forster claims that the novel was 'the direct result of a visit to Edward Carpenter at Milnthorpe' in 1913. He then goes on to describe Carpenter as 'a believer in the Love of Comrades, whom he sometimes called Uranians', and confesses that 'it was this last aspect of him that attracted me in my loneliness'. He then describes how Carpenter's male lover George Merrill touched him above the buttocks and the sensations 'seemed to go straight through the small of my back into my ideas, without involving my thoughts' (M, 217).' This occasioned the inception of Maurice and the novel was finished in 1914. In view of this...