SOURCE: "The Short Stories," in The Other Kingdom, Oliver & Boyd, 1968, pp. 9-19.

In this excerpt, Godfrey discusses Forster's preoccupation with the effects of the unseen supernatural as it relates to the plots and characterizations of his short stories.

Although the stories accompanied rather than preceded the writing of the first four novels, it is possible to consider them collectively, to see them, in relation to the novels, as preparatory. In 1946, in an introduction to a collected edition, Mr Forster refers to the stories as fantasies, and such for the most part they are. In the most typical of them, fantasy, usually an occurrence of a supernatural kind, is made to erupt in the midst of, and in defiance of everyday reality, and the characters in accordance with the degree of their spiritual sensitivity react to it. An examination of three of the best known of the tales, beginning...