W. Somerset Maugham

Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, this beautifully written character study is an affirmation of the human capacity to grow, change, and forgive. The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane, who marries for money rather than love. When her husband, a quiet...

Of Human Bondage charts the life of Philip Carey, a sensitive and introspective individual born with a clubfoot. Orphaned at a young age, Philip searches for meaning through pursuits such as religion, art and medicine, but much of his early life is marked with emotional turmoil.

Cakes and Ale is a delicious satire of London literary society between the Wars. Social climber Alroy Kear is flattered when he is selected by Edward Driffield’s wife to pen the official biography of her lionized novelist husband, and determined to write a bestseller. But then Kear discovers...

When noted English writer W. Somerset Maugham set off for the South Seas to regain his health, his experiences would become the bedrock for the stories represented here. These are among Maugham’s best work, as well as some of the best stories ever written about the exotic South Seas...

This is the story of an artist who was willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of art. Charles Strickland, a stock broker in London, seems like a good, honest man. But one day, at the age of forty, heleaves his business, his wife, and his children and goes to Paris. He has neither money nor...

The Painted Veil is the story of Kitty Garstin, a young woman living a high social life, who marries Walter Fane, a man that’s declared his love for Kitty, just to avoid being upstaged by her younger and less attractive sister getting married first. Shortly after the marriage, they depart...