The Longest Journey

The longest journey is the one from who you are told to be to who you actually are.

E.M. Forster's most autobiographical novel is also his most searching—a story about a young man torn between the competing claims of art, family, friendship, and the strange, stubborn voice of his own heart.

Rickie Elliot, a sensitive and intellectually ambitious Cambridge graduate, dreams of becoming a writer. But the world has other plans. He marries the beautiful but shallow Agnes Pembroke, whose practical, respectable family slowly drains his creative spirit. He takes a teaching job he does not want. He suppresses his deepest friendships—including his intense bond with the earthy, unconventional Stewart Ansell. As Rickie stumbles through marriage, career, and the painful discovery that his wife has been unfaithful, Forster asks: What does it mean to live an authentic life? And how much of ourselves must we sacrifice before we are no longer ourselves?

This is Forster at his most raw and philosophical: a novel about disability, class, sexuality, and the courage required to choose one's own path. The Longest Journey is the least famous of Forster's major works—but for many readers, it is the most deeply felt.

• Forster's third novel (1907), often called his most personal and least polished—and for that reason, his most revealing

• Explores themes of disability (Rickie has a deformed foot), academic hypocrisy, and the tension between convention and authenticity

• Essential reading for Forster completists and anyone interested in the early 20th-century novel of ideas

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears—or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the longest journey is the one that never quite ends.

About the Author

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) was an English novelist, essayist, and librettist, best known for his novels exploring class, hypocrisy, and the struggle for human connection. His major works include Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), The Longest Journey (1907), A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Forster was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 16 different years. After 1924, he published no further novels, devoting himself instead to criticism and biography, including the posthumously published Maurice (1971), a groundbreaking novel about homosexual love written in 1913–14. Forster was a humanist, a secular thinker, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1969.