蜜芽传媒

At school, Maurice Hall had dreamed of finding a very special friend, someone for whom he would make any sacrifice, whom he could love for ever. When the unformed schoolboy becomes a more worldly undergraduate and meets the irresistible, clever Clive Durham, this dream seems to be in sight. Their attraction is strong but, at Clive鈥檚 urging, remains platonic.

As both change, their relationship cannot last, and Maurice is cast adrift to find his way to happiness in a world of snobbery, stifling uniformity and sexual repression.

E.M. Forster wrote Maurice in 1914, but never published it in his lifetime. He believed its theme of young gay love, inspired by an encounter he himself had as a lonely young writer, meant that it should forever remain unpublished, or at least until the laws of England changed. He was also determined to write a story in which two men should fall in love and find happiness, despite the social disapproval and hypocrisy of the times. It was not until 1971, four years after homosexuality had been decriminalised, that the book was finally published, and recognised as a founding work of modern gay literature.

In episode 10, Alec makes a fateful decision and Maurice at last finds the friend he has dreamed of since adolescence.

Read by David Dawson
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies
Sound design by Matt Bainbridge

A Pier production for 蜜芽传媒 Radio 4