Where Angels Fear to Tread is the first of Forster's Italian novels. It is a forerunner to A Room With a View, but with a much darker worldview. There is little whimsical about it. The homoerotic element incorporated in the friendship between Phillip and Gino, the two male leads, is notable and places the novel as a harbinger for Maurice. Many readers find the book one of Forster's most compelling narratives, and more than a few consider it their favorite. In particular, fans of Maurice's Scudder will appreciate Forster's portrait of Gino. .......... "Where Angels Fear To Tread is ... a whirlwind that spins around the character of Philip Herriton, who is torn between what he believes is right, and what he has been taught to believe is right. His attraction to the swarthy Gino adds an unspoken layer of tension to that conflict. It's a surprising book because it defies convention, and oscillates between comedy and tragedy." -- Christopher Bryant, Polari Magazine..........Watersgreen House is an independent international book publisher with editorial staff in the UK and USA. One of our aims at Watersgreen House is to showcase same-sex affection in works by important gay and bisexual authors in ways which were not possible at the time the books were originally published. We also publish nonfiction, including textbooks, as well as contemporary fiction that is literary, unusual, and provocative. watersgreen.wix.com/watersgreenhouse
About the Author: Edward Morgan Forster's most homosexual works are the two published posthumously, his novel Maurice, written in 1913 but not published until 1971, and a collection of short stories titled The Life to Come. Forster's other works were published as he wrote them. None contained overtly homosexual themes, although what readers would now refer to as a "gay sensibility" is present in all. Forster was a prolific writer in his youth but ceased to write at age forty-five. Forster never married and was well-known among his friends to be homosexual. However, he remained celibate until the age of thirty-eight when he visited Egypt and had sex with a wounded soldier he met on the beach. He lived a closeted life, but eventually enjoyed a loving relationship with a married policeman named Bob Buckingham. The two met when Forster was fifty-one, Buckingham twenty-eight, and the relationship lasted forty years. Before meeting Buckingham, Forster had much briefer affairs with another policeman and a bus driver.