‘Liking One Person is an Extra Reason for Liking Another’: The Queer Narratives in E. M. Forster's A Room with a View (1908)

Drawing on the notebooks, drafts and published version of E. M. Forster's A Room with a View (1908), this article explores how the author intended to incorporate a homoerotic theme from the novel's genesis in 1901–2. While drafting it between 1902 and 1904, Forster struggled to represent a homoerotic theme grounded in Victorian Hellenism. His approach was revitalised by his engagement with Edward Carpenter's queer socialism, which re-energized Forster's Hellenic ideas. Carpenter's philosophy provided Forster with a framework which enabled him to complete his Italian novel and trace a same-sex relationship that transcended the Edwardian class divide.