Despite the extensive scholarship about Forster’s life and work, his will has largely been overlooked. This article aims to fill this gap and presents a reading of his will which treats it not simply as a functional legal document but as a biographical, sociological and, arguably, a literary text. In doing so it demonstrates the importance for Forster of inheritance as a complex ethical practice. In particular it focuses on how the bequests and extensive individual legacies in the will convey the same political beliefs and personal values which are found in his novels, and are similarly open to contested and contradictory interpretations. In this way and in reading the will against Maurice, it is argued that Forster’s will is an overlooked posthumous publication.