Synopses & Reviews
Somerset Maugham's irony and cool detachment make him an acknowledged master of the short story. The stories collected here are typical of Maugham's wry perception of human weakness and his unique talent for evoking a sense of time and place. They are set in familiar Maugham territory the South Seas, Europe and America but they are all concise and compelling dramas played out by unforgettable characters. The collection includes some of Maugham's most famous stories: "The Alien Corn," "Flotsam and Jetsam," and particularly "The Vessel of Wrath," a surprising tale of burgeoning love between a repressed mission lady and a drunken reprobate.
Review
"His achievement was large...The short story was Maugham's true métier, and some of the stories he wrote are among the best in the language." Anthony Burgess, the Listener
Review
"[Somerset 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." Dirk Bogade, the Daily Telegraph
Review
"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." Cyril Connolly, The Sunday Times
Synopsis
The second of four volumes of short stories which reflect Somerset Maugham's wry perception of human foibles and gift for evoking drama from a sense of time and place. Set in Malaya, America and England, they include "Flotsam and Jetsam," "The Man With the Sca, r" and "The Vessel of Wrath."
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust theseries to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-datetranslations by award-winning translators."
About the Author
W. 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 afterwards walked the wards of St. Thomas's Hospital with a view to practice in medicine, but the success of his first novel,
Liza of Lambeth (1897), won him over to letters. Something of his hospital experience is reflected, however, in the first of his masterpieces,
Of Human Bondage (1915), and with
The Moon and Sixpence (1919) his reputation as a novelist was assured.
His position as one of the most successful playwrights on the London stage was being consolidated simultaneously. His first play, A Man of Honour (1903), was followed by a procession of successes just before and after the First World War. (At one point only Bernard Shaw had more plays running at the same time in London.) His theatre career ended with Sheppey (1933).
His fame as a short-story writer began with The Trembling of a Leaf, sub-titled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, in 1921, after which he published more than ten collections.
W. Somerset Maugham's general books are fewer in number. They include travel books, such as On a Chinese Screen (1922) and Don Fernando (1935), essays, criticism, and the self-revealing The Summing Up (1938) and A Writer's Notebook (1949).
W. Somerset Maugham became a Companion of Honour in 1954. He died in 1965.
Table of Contents
The Vessel of Wrath
The Force of Circumstance
Flotsam and Jetsam
The Alien Corn
The Creative Impulse
Virtue
The Man with the Scar
The Closed Shop
The Bum
The Dream
The Treasure
The Colonel's Lady
Lord Mountdrago
The Social Sense
The Verger
In a Strange Land
The Taipan
The Counsel
A Friend in Need
The Round Dozen
The Human Element
Jane
Footprints in the Jungle
The Door of Opportunity