Selected Stories »

A graceful writer with a keen eye for the bittersweetness bound in differences of class and culture, E. M. Forster had an abbreviated but remarkably successful career as a novelist and established himself as one of England's most insightful 20th-century writers.

Although he is best known for his novels-several of which have been made into popular movies-E.M. Forster also published stories. This volume, which collects those stories published during Forster's lifetime, provides an opportunity for readers to discover these less familiar works. Rich in irony and alive with sharp observations on the surprises life holds, the stories often feature violent events, discomforting coincidences, and other disruptive happenings that throw the characters' perceptions and beliefs off balance.

In their keen Introduction, David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell discuss Forster's place in both the short-story tradition and in the tradition of gay literature.

Author Bio: Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970) was born in London and attended King's College, Cambridge. He wrote six novels, short stories, essays and nonfiction works. His novel A Passage to India (1924) won both the Prix Femina Vie Heureuse and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

David Leavitt is a novelist and short-story writer whose books include the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Family Dancing, The Lost Language of Cranes, A Place I've Never Been, and Equal Affection.

Mark Mitchell is the author of Virtuosi, editor of The Penguin Book of International Gay Writing and co-editor with Leavitt of The Penguin Book of Gay Short Stories.