Featuring fourteen short stories, most previously unpublished, The Life to Come spans six decades of E.M. Forster’s writing, from approximately 1903 to 1958, and shows Forster at every phase of his writing career.
Forster, feeling his career would suffer, never sought publication for most of the stories, hiding these away along with Maurice, his novel of homosexual love.
With stories that are lively and amusing (“What Does It Matter”; “The Obelisk”), as well as more somber and deft portrayals of love, truth, and society (“Dr Woolacott”; “Arthur Snatchfold”), The Life to Come sheds a light on Forster’s powerful but suppressed explorations beyond the strictures of conventional society.
