The Life to Come

‘Neither of them knew when the end came, and he when he realised it felt no sadness, no remorse’ Ranging from moving to satirical, historical to supernatural, Forster’s masterful storytelling is on full display in these tales of passion and betrayal. Love, death, class and race collide in these short stories, which are alive with sharp social observations and thrum with the threat of violence that stalked gay men’s lives. Written between 1903 and 1957, only two out of the fourteen stories in this collection were published during E. M. Forster’s lifetime: most of the other stories remained unpublished because of their overtly gay themes. Introduction by Diarmuid Hester