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By: W. Somerset Maugham (1847-1965)

Rain by W. Somerset Maugham Rain

Rain charts the moral disintegration of a missionary attempting to convert a Pacific island prostitute named Sadie Thompson. (Introduction by an excerpt from Wikipedia)

The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham The Moon and Sixpence

The Moon and Sixpence is a 1919 short novel by William Somerset Maugham based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. The story is told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle aged English stock broker who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist.

Book cover On a Chinese Screen

This is a non-fiction collection of Maugham's observations of life in Asia in the early 20th Century.

Book cover The Magician

The Magician is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham, originally published in 1908. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life. Crowley wrote a critique of this book under the pen name Oliver Haddo, where he accused Maugham of plagiarism. Maugham wrote The Magician in London, after he had spent some time living in Paris, where he met Aleister Crowley. The novel was later republished with a foreword by Maugham entitled A Fragment of Autobiography. (Wikipedia)

Book cover East of Suez a Play in Seven Scenes
Book cover The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia
Book cover Bishop's Apron

"Canon Spratte saw himself as he thought others might see him: mediocre, pompous, self-assertive, verbose." Maugham could have added ambitious, hypocritical, and vain. In this engrossing social satire, Theodore Spratte, a cleric, motivated by an obsessive desire to be elevated to bishop, embellishes his family history and intrudes upon his son's and daughter's courtships. A reviewer in 1906 wrote, "The whole book is an admirable blend of cynical gaiety and broadly farcical comedy; it is the smartest and most genuinely humorous novel that the season has yet given us." -- Lee Smalley

Book cover Mrs. Craddock

“I thought it was you I saw coming up the hill,” she said, stretching out her hand. He stopped and shook it; the touch of his big, firm fingers made her tremble. His hand was massive and hard as if it were hewn of stone. She looked up at him and smiled. “Isn’t it cold?” she said. It is terrible to be desirous of saying all sorts of passionate things, while convention debars you from any but the most commonplace. (Excerpts from chapter 1.)

Book cover Trembling of a Leaf

A collection of short stories on the South Sea Islands, among which are the famous "Red," "Rain," and "The Fall of Edward Barnard," the last of which contains the basic story of what came to be one of the most well-known among W. Somerset Maugham's novels, The Razor's Edge. - Summary by Lilith Branda

Book cover Merry-Go-Round

Basil Kent marries Jenny Bush, because he believes that is the honourable thing to do after getting her pregnant, but he realizes that he is really in love with Hilda Murray. Grace Castillyon, an established married woman of position, has fallen hopelessly in love with young Reggie Bassett, who is only playing with her. Bella Langton ignores the short remaining days of Herbert Field who is suffering from consumption, and determines to marry him so that he can afford to spend the winters abroad. The Merry-Go-Round weaves together these relationships, adorned by the peripheral figures of Miss Ley and Frank Hurrell, observers of what is going on, who also have their own stories to tell...

Book cover Painted Veil

This Maugham classic is set in England and Hong Kong and in a cholera --ridden Chinese village in the 1920's. A committed, principled, epidemiologist, Dr. Fane, falls in love with the beautiful, but vain and foolish, Kitty Garstin. She agrees to marry him only because she wishes to beat her sister to the altar. She soon commits adultery with a British official in Hong Kong, where they have relocated. Dr. Fane decides that she must accompany him to a small village, deep within China, where cholera is rampant; otherwise, he will reveal the betrayal, with grave consequences for all...

Book cover Lady Frederick, a Comedy in Three Acts

Lady Frederick is a comedy by the British writer W. Somerset Maugham, written early in his career. The play was first seen in London in 1907, and was very successful, running for 422 performances. The title role was played by Ethel Irving. In New York it was first performed in 1908, with Lady Frederick played by Ethel Barrymore, who reprised her role in the play's film adaptation, The Divorcee. In the play, Lady Frederick is an Irish widow, seriously in debt; she must deal with suitors who have various motives for proposing marriage, and with the man with whom she once had an affair...


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