W. Somerset Maugham

Gripped by an overwhelming obsession, Charles Strickland, a conventional London stockbroker, decides in midlife to desert his wife, family, business, and civilization for his art. One of Maugham's most popular works, The Moon and Sixpence is a riveting story about an uncompromising and self-destructive man who forsakes wealth and comfort to pursue the life of a painter. Drifting from Paris to Marseilles, Strickland eventually settles in Tahiti, takes...

For Christmas, Charley Mason's father granted him a trip to Paris, all expenses paid. It should have been a lark, but on his first night Charley meets a woman whose story will forever change his life.
For Lydia has seen tragedy. The Russian Revolution displaced her family, left her homeless, fatherless. And for reasons that elude Charley, Lydia pines for a man half a world away—a dope dealer and murderer whose sins Lydia seeks to absolve through...

Maugham's first novel is about the gloomy, poverty-stricken world of South London in the 1890s and how it affects one young girl who tries to escape from it.

Many war heroes return from battle to a world that has changed dramatically. In the case of James Parsons, the protagonist of W. Somerset Maugham's The Hero, his family and hometown have remained exactly as they were before he left to serve his country abroad—it is his own outlook and values that have shifted. Will he be able to settle back into his old life and regain the happiness that was once his? Read The Hero to find out.

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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 play by prolific British author W. Somerset Maugham delves deeper into several subjects that preoccupied Maugham throughout his literary career: the way that our external environment can shape our personalities and choices, and the usually negative consequences that arise from the intermingling of two divergent cultural traditions. In the play, an unlikely love affair blossoms and then sours against the backdrop of early twentieth century

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From one of literature's finest storytellers comes an enchanting tale of secrets, the supernatural—and fatal attraction. Renowned English surgeon Arthur Burdon is engaged to the beautiful Margaret Dauncey, who is studying art in Paris. The match is met with approval from all sides, and everyone is happy—until the mysterious Oliver Haddo enters the picture. Both Arthur and his fiancée dislike the enormously fat and eccentric Oliver but are fascinated...

A young American, vaguely conscious that he is "missing something," goes to Paris and India in search of God and the infinite. A flyer returns from World War I seeking spiritual peace. He rejects the comfortable world of his fiancee and sets off around the world. Leaving wealth and loved ones behind, Larry Darrell journeys to the mountains of India in search of spiritual wisdom. Larry Darrell, a World War I veteran haunted by his memories of the war,...

Set in the 1920s. A young English couple, Walter a middle class doctor and Kitty, an upper-class woman, get married for all the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai. Kitty falls in love with someone else. When Walter discovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China that is being ravaged by a deadly epidemic. He takes his wife along and their journey brings meaning to their relationship and gives them...

A rubber plantation owner's wife kills a man in "self-defense", only to have a letter surface which proves it was the murder of her blackmailer.