Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time "It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham," wrote Gore Vidal. "He was always so entirely there." Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic bildungsroman tells the story of Philip Carey, a sensitive boy born with a clubfoot who is orphaned and raised by a religious aunt and uncle. Philip yearns for adventure,...
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time "It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is hone...
This third volume of Maugham's stories, introduced and selected by the author himself, contains the celebrated series about Ashenden, a secret service agent in WWI. Based on Maugham's own experiences with the British Intelligence service in Switzerland, the stories are vignettes in which he dramatizes both the romance and absurdity of espionage as well as its ruthlessness and brutality. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the...
This third volume of Maugham's stories, introduced and selected by the author himself, contains the celebrated series about Ashenden, a secret service...
W. Somerset Maugham s first novel is about the gloomy, poverty-stricken world of South London in the 1890s and how it affects one young girl who tries to escape from it."
W. Somerset Maugham s first novel is about the gloomy, poverty-stricken world of South London in the 1890s and how it affects one young girl who tries...
One of the novels that galvanized W. Somerset Maugham's reputation as a literary master The Moon and Sixpence follows the life of one Charles Strickland, a bourgeois city gent whose dull exterior conceals the soul of a genius. Compulsive and impassioned, he abandons his home, wife, and children to devote himself slavishly to painting. In a tiny studio in Paris, he fills canvas after canvas, refusing to sell or even exhibit his work. Beset by poverty, sickness, and his own intransigent, unscrupulous nature, he drifts to Tahiti, where, even after being blinded by leprosy, he produces...
One of the novels that galvanized W. Somerset Maugham's reputation as a literary master The Moon and Sixpence follows the life of one Charl...
Maugham's enchanting tale of secrets and fatal attraction
The Magician is one of Somerset Maugham's most complex and perceptive novels. Running through it is the theme of evil, deftly woven into a story as memorable for its action as for its astonishingly vivid characters. In fin de siecle Paris, Arthur and Margaret are engaged to be married. Everyone approves and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves--until the sinister and repulsive Oliver Haddo appears.
Maugham's enchanting tale of secrets and fatal attraction
The Magician is one of Somerset Maugham's most complex and perceptive nove...
There is something bracing about the sincerity of Maugham's] style . . . a style that serves his general purpose of stripping life to the bone with a thin, sharp knife that lays open to view the normal flesh and the healthy flow of blood as well as the cancerous sore beneath. Leslie A. Marchand, The New York Times Edward Craddock is a thoroughly good man. He may lack his wife Bertha s education, but he is unfailingly good-humored, handsome, placid, and popular. It is hardly surprising that Bertha adores him. But expending all one s passion, all one s spirit, on a man who...
There is something bracing about the sincerity of Maugham's] style . . . a style that serves his general purpose of stripping life to the bone wi...
From a tormented orphan with a clubfoot, Philip Carey grows into an impressionable young man with a voracious appetite for adventure and knowledge. His cravings take him to Paris at age eighteen to try his hand at art, then back to London to study medicine. But even so, nothing can sate his nagging hunger for experience. Then he falls obsessively in love, embarking on a disastrous relationship that will change his life forever.... Marked by countless similarities to Maugham's own life, his masterpiece is "not an autobiography," as the author himself once contended, "but an...
From a tormented orphan with a clubfoot, Philip Carey grows into an impressionable young man with a voracious appetite for adventure and knowledge. Hi...
W. Somerset Maugham led many lives, including that of a doctor in London's slums, a successful playwright and novelist, an agent for British Intelligence during World War I, and a world traveler. In 1917, he took the first of many voyages to the Pacific Islands and the Far East, where his keen sense of observation found inspiration for some of his finest writing. Rain and Other South Sea Stories features one of Maugham's most famous tales, concerning the clash between a missionary and a prostitute. "Rain" was adapted for the stage and filmed on three separate occasions, its leading...
W. Somerset Maugham led many lives, including that of a doctor in London's slums, a successful playwright and novelist, an agent for British Intellige...
The first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, he settles in London to train as a doctor where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a tortured and masochistic affair.
"From the Trade Paperback edition.
The first and most autobiographical of Maugham's masterpieces. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a ...
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of his spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters - his fiancee Isabel whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliott Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob.Maugham himself wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates."
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of his spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant ...