Eight full-cast dramatisations and readings

The Somerset Maugham BBC Radio Collection

A collection of the BBC’s dramatisations and readings of W Somerset Maugham’s fiction, with star casts including Alex Jennings, Dirk Bogarde, and Janet Maw.

BBC Radio 4 dramatisations and readings of Somerset Maugham's fiction - plus bonus programme Replay: Somerset Maugham 
 
William Somerset Maugham was one of the most successful English writers of the 20th Century, and remains the most adapted for film and TV. This collection includes eight of his novels, plays and short stories, as heard on BBC radio, as well as an illuminating interview with the author himself. 
 
The Moon and Sixpence - Respectable stockbroker Charles Strickland abandons his wife and children to live as a painter in Paris and Tahiti. Starring Ronald Pickup and Patrick Allen. 
 
The Painted Veil - First published in 1925 to a storm of protest, this is a haunting, poignant tale of one woman's spiritual awakening. Starring Sarah Smart and Nicholas Farrell. 
 
The Sacred Flame- Invalided following an air crash, Maurice is determined to remain cheerful. But his condition affects all those who are close to him. Starring Julian Glover, Wendy Hiller, Hannah Gordon and Janet Maw. 
 
Ashenden, Gentleman Spy - Ashenden, a writer by profession, returns from the First World War and is offered a position in the Secret Service. Five short stories based on Maugham's own wartime experiences, read byAlex Jennings. 
 
For Services Rendered- In this incisive state-of-the nation play, it is 1932, and the progressive Ardsley family seem to be managing their lives very well. But in reality, each of them is fighting for survival. Starring David Calder, Sian Thomas and Louise Brealey. 
 
The Narrow Corner - Sailing home from the East Indies, a doctor and his two companions are forced to seek shelter on the island of Kanda - where they encounter the beautiful, sultry Louise... Starring Garard Green, Owen Scott, Douglas Blackwell and Cara Kelly. 
 
Christmas Holiday - 1938, and Charley is looking forward to spending Christmas in Paris with his old school friend, Simon. But they are both ignorant of the storm clouds lowering over Europe... Starring Peter Rumney and Anthony Daniels. 
 
The Razor's Edge - After the First World War, Larry Darrell returns to Chicago but finds it difficult to fit back into society. To the dismay of his fiancée, Isabel, he heads for Paris and embarks on a spiritual quest. StarringNicholas Le Prevost, John Light and Megan Dodds. 
 
Replay: Somerset Maugham - Philip French presents an archive interview with Somerset Maugham, recorded in 1954 on the occasion of his 80th birthday. 
 
©2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

BBC Radio 4 dramatisations and readings of Somerset Maugham's fiction - plus bonus programme Replay: Somerset Maugham 
 
William Somerset Maugham was one of the most successful English writers of the 20th Century, and remains the most adapted for film and TV. This collection includes eight of his novels, plays and short stories, as heard on BBC radio, as well as an illuminating interview with the author himself. 
 
The Moon and Sixpence - Respectable stockbroker Charles Strickland abandons his wife and children to live as a painter in Paris and Tahiti. Starring Ronald Pickup and Patrick Allen. 
 
The Painted Veil - First published in 1925 to a storm of protest, this is a haunting, poignant tale of one woman's spiritual awakening. Starring Sarah Smart and Nicholas Farrell. 
 
The Sacred Flame- Invalided following an air crash, Maurice is determined to remain cheerful. But his condition affects all those who are close to him. Starring Julian Glover, Wendy Hiller, Hannah Gordon and Janet Maw. 
 
Ashenden, Gentleman Spy - Ashenden, a writer by profession, returns from the First World War and is offered a position in the Secret Service. Five short stories based on Maugham's own wartime experiences, read byAlex Jennings. 
 
For Services Rendered- In this incisive state-of-the nation play, it is 1932, and the progressive Ardsley family seem to be managing their lives very well. But in reality, each of them is fighting for survival. Starring David Calder, Sian Thomas and Louise Brealey. 
 
The Narrow Corner - Sailing home from the East Indies, a doctor and his two companions are forced to seek shelter on the island of Kanda - where they encounter the beautiful, sultry Louise... Starring Garard Green, Owen Scott, Douglas Blackwell and Cara Kelly. 
 
Christmas Holiday - 1938, and Charley is looking forward to spending Christmas in Paris with his old school friend, Simon. But they are both ignorant of the storm clouds lowering over Europe... Starring Peter Rumney and Anthony Daniels. 
 
The Razor's Edge - After the First World War, Larry Darrell returns to Chicago but finds it difficult to fit back into society. To the dismay of his fiancée, Isabel, he heads for Paris and embarks on a spiritual quest. StarringNicholas Le Prevost, John Light and Megan Dodds. 
 
Replay: Somerset Maugham - Philip French presents an archive interview with Somerset Maugham, recorded in 1954 on the occasion of his 80th birthday. 
 
©2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2020 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Plays Volume Two

This second volume of Maugham's collected plays shows the range of his talent, from sparkling comedies about the marriage state to powerfully tense dramas of sexual passion

Maugham had few equals among his contemporaries

William Somerset Maugham, famous as novelist, playwright and short-story writer, was born in 1874, and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with a view to practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to letters. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. His position as a successful playwright was being consolidated at the same time. His first play, A Man of Honour, was followed by a series of successes just before and after World War I, and his career in the theatre did not end until 1933 with Sheppey. 
 
His fame as a short story writer began with The Trembling of a Leaf, subtitled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, in 1921, after which he published more than ten collections. His other works include travel books such as On a Chinese Screen, and Don Fernando, essays, criticism, and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. 
 
In 1927, he settled in the south of France, and lived there until his death in 1965.

Witty, comedic and engrossing, this second collection showcases the range of W. Somerset Maugham’s talent as a playwright. The delightful satires of marriage Lady Frederick and Home and Beauty are included here alongside the insightful war drama For Services Rendered, and Maugham's tense colonial drama The Letter. Eclectic in theme and sardonic in style, these plays are masterpieces of English social comedy and melodrama.

Plays Volume One

The first volume of Maugham's collected plays, which includes his most popular comedies and melodramas

Maugham has given infinite pleasure and left us a splendour of writing which will remain for as long as the written English word is permitted to exist

A formidable talent, a formidable sum of talents...precision, tact, irony and total absence of pomposity

A shrewd, still-relevant examination of women's roles, the nature of love and the manners and mores of marriage

In his day, W. Somerset Maugham was most celebrated as a playwright, and the breadth of his ability is manifested in this collection of his most popular plays. Included here are the noirish mystery The Sacred Flame, the hilarious satires The Circle, The Constant Wife, and Our Betters, and the sharp-witted drama Sheppey. Whether suspenseful or acerbically witty, these plays take a sly look at the idiosyncrasies and hypocrisies of their time.

Of Human Bondage

Set at the end of the nineteenth century, Maugham’s semi-autobiographical novel is an unforgettable portrait of Philip Carey, an orphan with a club foot, desperate for knowledge and experience, as he struggles to find his way in a world that is as rigid as it is unforgiving.

In Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster wrote: "The final test of a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, of anything else that we cannot define." He might have been writing about W. Somerset Maugham's masterpiece, Of Human Bondage.

I do not know of any living writer who seems to have his work so much under control.

A deeply imagined and powerfully moving novel.

Maugham, who usually cultivated a fastidious detachment, shows in this work a personal commitment that was unusual, sweeping the reader up in his own passionate intensity.

W. Somerset Maugham (Author) William Somerset Maugham, famous as novelist, playwright and short-story writer, was born in 1874, and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with a view to practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to letters. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. His position as a successful playwright was being consolidated at the same time. His first play, A Man of Honour, was followed by a series of successes just before and after World War I, and his career in the theatre did not end until 1933 with Sheppey. 
 
His fame as a short story writer began with The Trembling of a Leaf, subtitled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, in 1921, after which he published more than ten collections. His other works include travel books such as On a Chinese Screen, and Don Fernando, essays, criticism, and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. 
 
In 1927, he settled in the south of France, and lived there until his death in 1965. Selina Hastings (Introducer) Selina Hastings is a writer and journalist, biographer of Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh, Nancy Mitford and Rosamund Lehmann and, in The Red Earl, of her father. 
 
She is the winner of the Marsh Biography Prize, the Spear's Award for Outstanding Achievement and the Biographers' Club Lifetime Services to Biography Award.

After a lonely boyhood, and the painful ordeal of his schooldays, Philip's yearning for adventure takes him to Germany and later Paris where he tries to make his mark as an artist before returning to London to study medicine. Here, a tortured and one-sided love affair with Mildred, a vulgar yet irresistible waitress, changes the course of his life for ever. 
 
Commenting later on the novel’s autobiographical aspects, Maugham recalled how in writing the book he mingled fact and fiction and 'found myself free from the pains and unhappy recollections that had tormented me'.However, like Dickens’s David Copperfield to which it is often compared, Of Human Bondage goes far beyond autobiography, and is Maugham’s most ambitious and unsparing novel, revealing the author’s undoubted gift for storytelling as he explores the timeless theme of human freedom - freedom to act, to think and to love.

Points of View

Another wide-ranging volume of essays from the prose master

One of the greatest yet least fashionable of all British writers

One of the finest (though now frequently overlooked) novelists and dramatists of the 20th century

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Eclectic and illuminating, these essays are the last that Maugham published. Ranging from an appreciation of Goethe's novels, to an encounter with an Indian holy man, with a considered analysis of the form at which Maugham himself excelled - the short story - they present the enduring views and opinions of this eminent writer.

Ten Novels And Their Authors

Maughams' inimitable guide to some of the literary masters; Austen, Fielding, Balzac, Stendal, Dickens, Flaubert, Melville, Bronte, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy

The modern writer who has influenced me most

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Maugham's studies of the lives and masterpieces of ten great novelists are outstanding examples of literary criticism at its finest. Afforded here are some of the formulae of greatness in the genre, as well as the flaws and heresies which enfeeble it. Written by a master of fiction, Ten Novels and Their Authors is a unique and invaluable guide.

The Vagrant Mood

Another collection of sparkling essays by one of Britain's most neglected masters of the form

One of the most cosmopolitan English writers

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

The Vagrant Mood is a brilliantly varied and colourful collection of essays. From Kant to Raymond Chandler; from the legend of Zurbaran to the art of the detective story; from Burke to Augustus Hare, Somerset Maugham brings his inimitable mastery of the incisive character sketch to the genre of literary criticism

A Writer's Notebook

Maugham's working notebook, which he kept for most of his writing life, forms one of his most important pieces of work

A never less than fascinating man, who managed to be a world citizen, spy, millionaire and, of course, well-loved author

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

From 1892, when he was eighteen, until 1949, when this book was first published, Somerset Maugham kept a notebook. It is without doubt one of his most important works. Part autobiographical, part confessional, packed with observations, confidences, experiments and jottings it is a rich and exhilarating admission into this great writer's workshop

The Summing Up

A rare glimpse into the life and mind of one of the most enigmatic of 20th century authors

In what Somerset Maugham has written readers have found fascinating tales, sharply revealed characters, a fine narrative craft, and an author who has always been completely, honestly himself

One of the finest short-story stylists Britain has ever produced

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Autobiographical without being an autobiography, confessional without disclosing his private self, The Summing Up, written when Maugham was sixty-four, is an inimitable expression of a personal credo. It is not only a classic avowal of a professional author's ideas about style, literarture, art, drama and philosophy, but also an illuminating insight into this great writer's craft.

Christmas Holiday

A coming-of-age novel that moves from genteel British society to the grim underworld of Paris before the war

Contrasts the complacency of prewar Britain with the nastiness of what was brewing on the Continent. It remains effortlessly readable

One reads it with a feeling of increasing respect for his mastery of the trade. One has the same delight as in watching a first-class cabinet-maker cutting dovetails

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

A coming-of-age novel that moves from genteel British society to the grim underworld of Paris before the war. 
 
 
At the age of twenty-three, Charlie Mason is endowed with good looks, good manners and a cheerful disposition. Following three years at Cambridge and one working in his father's business, he is looking forward to a jaunt in Paris with one of his oldest friends. Yet Paris is not what he expects - in just a few days his young eyes are opened to the tragedies and ugly dramas of its underworld.

Short Stories

The definitive selection of Maugham's best short stories

His plots are cool and deadly, and his timing is absolutely flawless

The short story was Maugham's true metier, and the stories he wrote are among the best in the language

At his best he can tell a story as well as any man alive or dead

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965.

Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection. In acclaimed stories such as 'Rain', 'The Letter', 'The Vessel of Wrath' and 'The Alien Corn', Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama and an acute sense of time and place.

Merry Go Round

A trio of stories narrated by one of Maugham's most endearing characters, Miss Ley

Maugham was one of the great masters of clever narrative and construction

A formidable talent, a formidable sum of talents

It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. . . . He was always so entirely there

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Looking out upon the backstreets, the suburbs and the high society haunts of Edwardian London, the delightfully witty and independent spinster Miss Ley surveys a tangled web of lives; she sympathetically observes the struggle under the pressures of convention, and the complex interplay between love and reason. Through Miss Ley's eyes we witness the brief but happy marriage of a dying poet; a woman's adulterous passion for a young rascal, and finally, an honourable man's decision to take virtue to extremes.

The Narrow Corner

A tense potboiler set on an exotic Pacific island by one of the 20th century's bestselling authors.

Maugham had a narrow but profound gift for domesticating the strange and making the exotic appear reassuringly familiar

The fictional summa of everything Maugham had seen and learned about the East

The modern writer who has influenced me the most

He puts most 21st-century novelists to shame

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965.

On his way home from a remote Pacific island, Dr Saunders travels with two strangers: the treacherous Captain Nichols, and Fred, a handsome Australian with a shadowy past. Driven to shelter from a storm on the island of Kanda, the trio meet good-natured Erik Christessen and his fiancée, the cool and beautiful Louise. A tense, exotic tale of love, jealousy, murder and suicide, which evolved from a passage in Maugham's earlier masterpiece, The Moon and Sixpence.

Catalina

'The modern writer who has influenced me the most' George Orwell

In his prime, he evolved a clear and effective prose style that achieved a quality possessed only by master story-tellers, making the reader greedy for more....From an era that produced George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and John Galsworthy, Maugham is the great survivor

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Crippled sixteen-year-old 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 Catalina seems more inclined to obey her heart than the demands of the Church. 
 
The last of Maugham's novels, Catalina is a romantic celebration of Spain and a delightfully mischievous satire on absolutism.

Don Fernando

Another classic travel book from Maugham; fierce and colourful throughout.

One of the most under-rated writers of last century

He was a superb storyteller - one of the very best in our language - who wrote with a wordly, sardonic understanding of the human condition.

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Considered by Graham Greene to be Maugham's best work, Don Fernando is a paean to a golden age of enormous creative energy. It discusses the writings of St. Teresa and the paintings of El Greco, and comments with sagacity and wit on such illustrious figures as Cervantes, Velazquez and the creator of Don Juan. This vibrant assessment of a great people at their greatest hour is full of happy surprises, curious facts and stimulating opinions that reflect Maugham's lifelong enchantment with the landscape and people of Spain.

Mrs Craddock

Here is Maugham's famous heroine - the intelligent, spirited and passionate Mrs Craddock

He is a decade ahead of D.H. Lawrence in his portrayal of a woman with a passionate sexual attraction

Maugham's best work as a novelist...ahead of its time

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Bertha Ley comes of age, inherits her father's money and promptly marries a handsome, calm and unimaginative man. Bertha is wildly in love with Edward and believes she can be happy playing the role of a dutiful wife in their country home. But, intelligent and sensual, she quickly becomes bored by her oppressively conventional life, and finds her love for her husband slipping away. 
 
Originally rejected by publishers, Mrs Craddock was first published only on condition that certain 'shocking' passages were removed. It was thirty years before the full text could be published.

Liza of Lambeth

A tale of passionate love affair within the vividly realistic portrayal of 19th century working-class London life by the neglected 20th century master.

One of the most interesting and least patronising accounts of cockney life in the late 19th century

A picture of such squalor and deprivation that it caused an uproar and made Maugham famous

He evolved a quality possessed only by master story-tellers - that of making the reader greedy for more

He shrewdly spun the raw material of human suffering into a brutal tale. Maugham pushed the limits of acceptability and gained a following for it

Down among the drab slums of Lambeth, eighteen-year-old Liza is the darling of Vere Street. Vibrant and bewitching, she is adored by the steady, loyal Tom. But then Liza meets Jim Blakeston, charming and worldy, new to the area, and married. Soon the streets are wise to their passionate affair and Liza's fall from grace is fast and fatal. Written while Maugham was a medical student, and his first published novel, Liza of Lambeth is a vividly realistic portrayal of working-class London life.

The Gentleman In The Parlour

A fantastic portrait of 1920s Burma and Thailand by the neglected 20th century master

There enough raw material to sate his imagination and the journey itself takes on the contours of a story worth recording. Among the coolly-observed descriptions of ruined pagodas there's the added treat of Maugham's catty thoughts on his craft

Maugham's finest travel book...As the urbane novelist wends his way through tropic climes, he reads Proust under the mosquito netting, listens to stories of passion and madness from British colonials gone to seed, and bears up under the merciless sun, sipping at a gin and bitters and laying out a hand of solitaire

An elegant writer's notebook, imaginative, crammed with impressions and ideas received simply and directly, without the filtering screens of literariness or Englishness... he writes with majestic plainness

A delightful book - It contains vivid travel impressions, some autobiographical confidences, and the plots for a dozen novels

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PAUL THEROUX 
 
Somerset Maugham's success as a writer enabled him to indulge his adventurous love of travel, and he recorded the sights and sounds of his wide-ranging journeys with an urbane, wry style all his own. The Gentleman in the Parlour is an account of the author's trip through what was then Burma and Siam, ending in Haiphong, Vietnam. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham's vivid descriptions bring a lost world to life.

On A Chinese Screen

A fascinating account of Maugham's travels in China by the neglected 20th century master

Evoke the nostalgic China of "old China hands," replete with rickshaws, coolies and singsing girls...satisfying accounts of the follies and foibles of the British diplomats and expatriates who stubbornly ignore the native culture and labor to create little enclaves of Chelsea and Soho in Asia

Masterly...carefully wrought prose sketches...The magical, mysterious East is richly portrayed

A fascinating volume - vivid, thoughtful, full of colour

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Maugham spent the winter months of 1919 travelling fifteen hundred miles up the Yangtze river. Always more interested in people than places, he noted down acute and finely crafted sketches of those he met on countless scraps of paper. In the resulting collection we encounter Western missionaries, army officers and company managers who are culturally out of their depth in the immensity of the Chinese civilisation. Maugham keenly observes, and gently ridicules, their dogged and oblivious persistence with the life they know.

More Far Eastern Tales

A collection of powerful short stories from a master of the form, W Somerset Maugham

Maugham teases out buried secrets as mesmerising as the heat and as menacing as the surrounding jungle

If all else perish, there will remain a storyteller's world...that is exclusively and forever Maugham, a world of verandah and prahu which we enter as well as we do that of Conan Doyle's Baker Street, and with a happy and eternal homecoming

Ideally you should listen to these stories lying in a long cane chair on the veranda of a dark bungalow sipping a gin and bitters - not that Maugham's writing needs any further atmospheric embellishment

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

From the love affair between a missionary and a drunkard to the mystery surrounding a death at sea, this collection gives a warm and humourous insight into life and history of life in the colonies and stands as a superbly entertaining and compelling testament to Maugham's skill and power as a short story writer.

W. Somerset Maugham

Reveals many of Maugham's strengths: an understanding of women, meticulous craftsmanship and raw emotion'

An expert craftsman... His style is sharp, quick, subdued, casual

'She was a fool and he knew it and because he loved her it had made no difference' 
 
Kitty Fane is the beautiful but shallow wife of Walter, a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong. Unsatisfied by her marriage, she starts an affair with charming, attractive and exciting Charles Townsend. But when Walter discovers her deception, he exacts a strange and terrible vengeance: Kitty must accompany him to his new posting in remote mainland China, where a cholera epidemic rages... 
 
VINTAGE DECO: Nine blazing, daring novels to celebrate the 1920s - 100 years on.

The Painted Veil

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

sectionTitle

isEnabled

anchor

anchorLabel

prhuk/featured-book

prhuk/praise-section

maxBooks

showViewMore

prhuk/books-section

hideAuthorAlert

formName

iterableDivision

iterableBrand

buttonText

description

heading

legalText

successHeading

successText

image

alignment

variation

prhuk/email-section

prhuk/series-section

prhuk/biography-section

prhuk/articles-section

prhuk-authors

The perfect gift? A Penguin Shop gift card

W. Somerset Maugham

Praise for The Painted Veil

Reveals many of Maugham's strengths: an understanding of women, meticulous craftsmanship and raw emotion'

A work of art

An expert craftsman... His style is sharp, quick, subdued, casual

Reveals many of Maugham's strengths: an understanding of women, meticulous craftsmanship and raw emotion'

A work of art

An expert craftsman... His style is sharp, quick, subdued, casual

Reveals many of Maugham's strengths: an understanding of women, meticulous craftsmanship and raw emotion'

A work of art

An expert craftsman... His style is sharp, quick, subdued, casual

Books by W. Somerset Maugham

Series by W. Somerset Maugham

Maugham Plays2 Books

Maugham Short Stories4 Books

Vintage Deco9 Books

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter