A Great Unrecorded History: a new life of E.M. Forster by Wendy Moffat (2010)

In light of the unpublished manuscripts that emerged after E.M. Forster’s death in 1970 at the age of 91, his old friend Christopher Isherwood remarked, “Of course all those books [about Forster] have got to be re-written. Unless you start with the fact that he was homosexual, nothing’s any good at all.” That, in a nutshell, is the reason for this new biography. At first I was skeptical about this sweeping statement, but Moffat absolutely succeeds in showing just how central Forster’s sexuality was to his writing and his life.

For example, why did Forster stop publishing novels in the 46 years after A Passage to India came out in 1924? He wrote essays, reviews, biography, lectures, and so on, but no fiction for publication. Over the decades, disappointed readers have wondered why. And the answer is that Morgan could no longer stand the pretense. Even by 1911, a diary entry describes his “weariness” about romantic plots: “the only subject that I both can and may treat—the love of men for women & vice versa.” What he wanted to write about, what he most deeply cared about, was the love of men for men—a “great unrecorded history.”

Moffat shows clearly why and how it was so difficult (and dangerous) for Forster to understand, accept, and explore his homosexuality. By the same token, she traces his increasing knowledge and experience closely, in remarkable and sympathetic detail. She allowed me to feel Forster’s joy in finding sex and intimacy at last. The yearning for connection across boundaries, especially of class and race, defined Forster his whole life, and when fulfilled brought him deep happiness. The greatest love of his life was Bob Buckingham, a policeman.

There’s much food for thought here, and plenty of essay fodder, on the subjects of race and class. It seems like all the English gays of his own class preferred working-class lovers. I assumed that was a safety mechanism because of the power imbalance, plus the fascination with the Other, as in Edward Said’s idea of Orientalism. (Forster’s first two serious lovers were Indian and Egyptian; he also had a long affair with a part-black English cab driver.) But I don’t get either attitude from this biography. Moffat carefully details Forster’s deep concern to treat his partners as social equals, making sure his friends did too, and was very sensitive to their feelings. He had many working-class friends, not just lovers.

The Forster that emerges here is admirable, human, even lovable. He put a premium on friendship as the prime human virtue, and his huge circle of friends and correspondents evidently adored him. (One American friend, broke, sold his Winslow Homer so he could visit Forster in England.) Reading this book can be saddening because of how a social prejudice can so constrict a great artist’s working life, not to mention his personal life. What a waste! But Forster wasn’t the kind of man to feel sorry for himself. I wish I had known him.

And finally, kudos to Moffat. She performed some truly energetic scholarship to prove her case, tracking down letters, photographs, and other evidence “scattered in archives” or in “remarkable hiding places—a vast oak cupboard in a London sitting room, a shoebox humbly nestled among mouse turds in a New England barn. . . . Only in 2008 were the final entries in his private diary, restricted from view since his death, opened to readers.” Forster left instructions that his papers couldn’t be mechanically reproduced, so every bit of sometimes barely legible writing had to be transcribed by hand. And the result of Moffat’s hard work is not just an interesting, well-written biography. A Great Unrecorded History is indispensable to a deeper understanding of E.M. Forster, his life, and his works.