E. M. Forster: Collected Short Stories

📘 Dedicated to Hermes - messenger, machine-breaker, and conductor of souls to a not-so-terrible hereafter - this collection is composed of masterpieces of fantasy. These twelve stories, written at various dates before the First World War, contain themes that were to re-emerge in Forster's later work, in particular the attempt to escape from the "respectable claim of reality". "The Machine Stops" is an Orwellian reaction to the earlier heavens of H.G.Wells; "The Road from Colonus" sees the victory of a tedious family over an old man's vision; and "The Celestial Omnibus" has innocence triumphing over experience. Above all, Forster demonstrates his belief in freedom, self-realization and a spiritual honesty that may be used to defeat the lies of repression.