FORSTER

In 1914, he visited Egypt, Germany and India with the classicist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, by which time he had written all but one of his novels. As a conscientious objector in the First World War, Forster served as a Chief Searcher (for missing servicemen) for the British Red Cross in Alexandria, Egypt. Though conscious of his repressed desires, it was only then, while stationed in Egypt, that he "lost his R [respectability]" to a wounded soldier in 1917. The underscored phrase “Mr Britling” is a title. This is a reference to H. G. Wells’s novel, published the previous year, Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916). By writing “Mr Britling is travelling after you somewhere or other”, Forster is probably referring to having posted a copy of the book to Mr Plant and, since Mr Plant is on the move, the book has been forwarded to him but has not yet caught up with him. Wells’s Mr. Britling Sees It Through is widely regarded as a masterpiece. “My Days and Dreams” is the title of Edward Carpenter’s groundbreaking LGBT book My Days and Dreams, Being Autobiographical Notes (1916). This letter shows that in early 1917 Forster was reading this book, the same year and it was in this year that he made his first foray into the physical exploration of gay desire.