54. Beryl de Zoete (1879–1962) was an English ballet dancer and translator of the Italian novelist, Italo Svevo; Sybil Colefax (1874–1950) was a society hostess and interior decorator.
55. Landanum was used as a pain reliever and to induce sleep. It also contained opium hence Forster is making a connection with the Romantic poet, Coleridge, who used opium to combat illness and depression.
56. Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) was a British writer and great admirer of William Wordsworth.
57. George Moore (1852–1933) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and writer of autobiographical works. He is the author of Esther Waters (1894), Reminiscences of the Impressionist Painters (1906), Salve (1912), and numerous other works.
58. Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) was the chief disciple of the Hindu holy man, Ramakrishna (1836–86).
59. Jeanne de Casalis (1897–1966) was a British actress; Anthony Asquith (1902–68) was a British film director whose films include Pygmalion (1938) and The Winslow Boy (1948).
60. Louis de Rouvroy duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755). His famous memoirs record life at the court of Louis XIV.
61. The Song of God: Bhagavad Gita, translated by Isherwood and his Guru, Swami Prabhavananda, was published by the Vedanta Press in 1944. It contains an introduction by Aldous Huxley.
62. Forster’s abbreviations for World War II and World War I, respectively.
Chapter 3
1. Sir (Francis) Osbert Sitwell (1892–1969) was an English writer and the brother of Dame Edith Sitwell. His most notable work is his five-volume autobiography (1945–50).
2. This letter is written on stationery that contains a drawing of Logan Rock, a picturesque rock formation extending out into Mount’s Bay in Cornwall, England. The reason Forster chose to use this stationery is not clear.
3. Weybridge, on the River Thames in Surrey outside of London, is the site of the boat races.
4. Christopher Wood was a wealthy British friend of Isherwood’s with whom Gerald Heard lived for some time.
5. Tyringham is a town in the Berkshires of Massachusetts where Forster visited Bill Roerick.
6. A two-volume French edition of Cervantes’s classic, Don Quixote de la Mancha, was translated by Louis Viardot and published in 1863. It contains 370 drawings by the French artist and illustrator, Paul Gustave Doré (1832–83).
7. The Alchemist is a comedy by Ben Jonson that was first performed in 1610.
Jamini Roy (1887–1972) was an Indian painter who, after achieving success pal-zeik-06notes 4/21/08 10:42 AM Page 190
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with portrait painting, began infusing his work with stylistic elements found in Bengali peasant art. Kama is not really a god but rather the term for
“desire”—as in the Kama Sutra.
8. C. H. Collins Baker (1880–1959) was a British art historian whose works include Catalogue of William Blake’s Drawings and Paintings in the Huntington Library (1957). Baker was at the Huntington evidently working on this project at the time of Forster’s visit.
9. Asaf Ali (1888–1953) fought for Indian independence from Britain and was the first ambassador from India to the United States (1947–48).
10. Although the return address of the air letter is King’s College Cambridge, Forster wrote the letter in Aldeburgh. Forster was residing at the home of Benjamin Britten, collaborating with Eric Crozier on the libretto for Britten’s opera Billy Budd. They completed the first draft of the libretto in sixteen days (Furbank, E. M. Forster, 2:283–84).
11. Peter Pears was Britten’s longtime companion.
12. The first letter is evidently Isherwood’s letter dated January 16 (1950); the more recent letter is not included in the Forster papers.
13. The film George Bernard Shaw did “control” was Pygmalion (1938), based on Shaw’s 1912–13 play for which Shaw won an Academy Award for the screenplay. The film that Forster considers an unsuccessful adaptation is Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), which was based on Shaw’s 1901 play, starring Claude Rains and Vivian Leigh in the title roles.
14. A geographical division of England: north or south of the Tees. The Tees is a river in Cumbria (in the north of England), flowing from the east to the North Sea in the west.
15. Donald Windham (b. 1920) is an American writer and friend of Paul Cadmus.
His stories on homosexual themes caught Forster’s attention and Forster became his friend and literary mentor. Forster wrote an introduction to Windham’s collection of stories, The Warm Country, which was published in 1960 (Furbank, E. M. Forster, 2:275). Sandy Campbell is Windham’s companion; it is not clear why Forster considers him a “monster.”
16. This letter is not included in the Forster papers and is presumably lost.
17. This letter is unidentified.
18. Arctic Summer is an unfinished novel Forster worked on intermittently from 1911 to 1914.
19. They are evidently students at Cambridge.
20. Forster eventually revised the penultimate chapter so that Maurice and Alec are reunited at the boathouse. The chapter closes with the reassuring words of Alec (who was sleeping when Maurice arrived): “And now we shan’t be parted no more, and that’s finished” ( Maurice, 210).
21. Wozzeck, the atonal opera by Austrian composer, Alban Berg (1885–1935), was first performed in 1925.
22. This letter is not included in the Forster papers.
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23. The Hill of Devi, published in October 1953, is an autobiographical work in which Forster records his visits to the Indian princely state of Dewas Senior in 1912–13 and later in 1921. As private secretary to the Maharaji during his first visit, Forster was well positioned to observe daily life at the court.
24. Forrest Reid (1875–1947) was an Irish novelist. His works include Peter Waring (1937) and two autobiographies: Apostate (1926) and Private Road (1940).
25. William Plomer was collaborating on the text for Benjamin Britten’s opera, Gloriana (1952), which was intended as a celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
26. This letter is not included in the Forster papers.
27. Walter Baxter (b. 1915) is a novelist. Forster is referring to Baxter’s novel, The Image and the Search, published in 1953. Baxter’s previous novel was Look Down in Mercy (1951).
28. Forster’s autobiographical work was published as The Hill of Devi; see note 23.
29. Swami Prabhavananda was Isherwood’s Guru; Pete Martinez was a Mexican ballet dancer and friend of Isherwood’s.
30. Forster forwarded this letter to Bob. In a handwritten postscript addressed to Bob, Forster writes: “Have invited them [i.e. the Countess and Swami] both to lunch with us next Sunday. Madness?”
31. Forster connects “I write to” with “Dearest Christopher” at the top of the page with an arrow.
32. Isherwood’s latest novel, The World in the Evening.
33. John van Druten (1901–57) was an English dramatist. His play, I am a Camera, is based on Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin. Van Druten took the name of the play from the famous opening passage in Isherwood’s noveclass="underline" “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed”