W. Somerset Maugham

While most of W. Somerset Maugham's novels achieved high commercial sales and critical acclaim at the turn of the 20th century, Maugham was also an accomplished short story writer. His stories compiled in "Rain and Other South Sea Stories" describe the beauty and feelings of the South Pacific at a time of British colonization. The most popular short story, "Rain", describes the futile attempts of an English missionary to convert a certain prostitute...

Xiormonez is the most inaccessible place in Spain. Only one train arrives there in the course of the day, and that arrives at two o'clock in the morning; only one train leaves it, and that starts an hour before sunrise. No one has ever been able to discover what happens to the railway officials during the intermediate one-and-twenty hours. A German painter I met there, who had come by the only train, and had been endeavouring for a fortnight to get...

The sea was very calm. There was no ship in sight, and the sea-gulls were motionless upon its even greyness. The sky was dark with lowering clouds, but there was no wind. The line of the horizon was clear and delicate. The shingly beach, no less deserted, was thick with tangled seaweed, and the innumerable shells crumbled under the feet that trod them. The breakwaters, which sought to prevent the unceasing encroachment of the waves, were rotten with...

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 fiance, the cool and beautiful Louise. A tense, exotic tale of love, jealousy, murder and suicide...

Niccolò Machiavelli is sent as an envoy of the Republic of Florence by Cesare Borgia. The dreaded prince is about to conquer Italy, and does not care about the Emperor or the King of France. From an episode emerges the magnificent portrait of the Italian Renaissance period. A love intrigue is also interwoven in this out of the ordinary Maugham novel where he sets the stage for Machiavelli's "The Prince" and play, "The Mandrake".

Compiled in one book, the essential collection of books by W. Somerset Maugham: • The Explorer • The Hero • The Land of Promise • The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • Liza of Lambeth • The Magician • Moon and Sixpence • Of Human Bondage • Orientations • The Trembling of a Leaf

A collection of six stories-including the acclaimed "The Outstation"-by the renowned twentieth-century author of the classic Of Human Bondage. Set in the Federated Malay States during the 1920s, these stories portray the lives of the English living abroad and the clashes that occur with the native Malaysians-and among themselves. In "Before the Party," a widow who lies about the cause of her husband's death in Borneo is confronted by her family...

This compilation contains three complete novels and eight major short stories from the canon of one of the twentieth century's most enduringly popular fiction writers. From London to Hong Kong, from Paris to Pago Pago, in Samoa or Malaya or on a Tahitian tropical isle, the men and women in this collection of masterfully crafted tales inhabit exotic, mysterious worlds-and at their own peril invade the dark territory of the human heart. Somerset Maugham,...

William Somerset Maugham was an English playwright, novelist, and short-story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. Both Maugham's parents died before he was 10, and the orphaned boy was raised in Whitstable, Kent by a paternal uncle, who was emotionally cold. He did not want to become a lawyer like other men in his family, so he trained and qualified as a physician. His first...

Liza of Lambeth (1897) is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Written while the author was living as a medical student in London, the Maugham's debut marked an electrifying start to an illustrious career in literature. Controversial for its portrayal of infidelity, domestic violence, and women's reproductive health, Liza of Lambeth is a gritty realist tale that takes an honest look at, the everyday struggles of actual Londoners in a time of celebration...