Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is at once a satiric caricature of Edwardian conventions and a vivid portrayal of the mentality of a genius. Charles Strickland abandons his family for Paris and Tahiti to paint. His decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications.

Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob.

After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as would-be artist, Philip Carey settles in London to train as a doctor. And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.

Best known for his novels and plays, Somerset Maugham also produced delightfully engaging and absorbing non-fiction, of which "The Gentleman in the Parlour" is a prime example. First published in 1935 it describes a journey the author took from Rangoon to Haipong. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham's muse is in the spirit of Hazlitt, who wrote: "It is great to shake off the trammels of the world and public opinion...and to be known by no other title than "The Gentleman in the Parlour."

In this classic guide, Maugham introduces and discusses what he considers to be the ten greatest novels and their authors. Here are some of the formulae of greatness in the genre, as well as the flaws and heresies that enfeeble it. Maugham's choice list: Fielding's Tom Jones; Dickens's David Copperfield; Flaubert's Madame Bovary; Balzac's Old Man Goriot; Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky; The Red and the Black by Stendhal, Pride and Prejudice by Austen; Melville's Moby Dick; Tolstoy's War and Peace.

From 1892 to 1949, Somerset Maugham recorded his thoughts and observations in this journal, which confirms his acute vision and his outstanding ability as a creative artist. The Writer's Notebook contains his notes while a medical student in London and follows his career as he travelled around the world developing his incomparable talent. At times light-hearted, occasionally barbed, this is a revealing and curiously intimate collection of the sketches and ideas of one of literature's most compelling personalities.

Julia Lambert is in her prime, the greatest actress in England. Off stage, however, she is bored with her handsome husband, coquettish and undisciplined. She is at first flattered and amused by the attentions of a shy and eager young fan, but before long Julia is amazed to find herself falling wildly, dangerously, in love.

Catalina is the one person unable to join in the festivities of the Feast of the Assumption. But then she has a vision of the Virgin, and is miraculously cured. In the dark days of the Spanish Inquisition, such a claim to blessedness has serious consequences, especially when she seems more inclined to obey her heart than the demands of the Church.

Introducing the world of Machiavelli, this title covers three important months in the career of that crafty politician, worldly seducer and high priest of schemers.

The story of the lovely but shallow Kitty Fane, the adulterous wife of a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong and of her husband s revenge."