Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 - 28 June 1929) was an English socialist poet, philosopher, anthologist, and early activist for rights for homosexuals. A poet and writer, he was a close friend of Rabindranath Tagore, and a friend of Walt Whitman. As a philosopher he was particularly known for his publication of Civilisation, Its Cause and Cure in which he proposes that civilisation is a form of disease that human societies pass through. An early advocate of sexual freedoms, he had an influence on both D. H. Lawrence and Sri Aurobindo, and inspired E. M. Forster's novel Maurice.