Download or read book The Gentleman In The Parlour written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book the Gentleman in the Parlour written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by . This book was released on 1941 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On a Chinese Screen written by William Somerset Maugham and published by . This book was released on 1922 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Somerset Maugham written by Jeffrey Meyers and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-04-28 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An instinctive and magnificent storyteller, Somerset Maugham was one of the most popular and successful writers of his time. He published seventy-eight books -- including the undisputed classics Of Human Bondage and The Razor’s Edge -- which sold over 40 million copies in his lifetime. Born in Paris to sophisticated parents, Willie Maugham was orphaned at the age of ten and brought up in a small English coastal town by narrow-minded relatives. He was trained as a doctor, but never practiced medicine. His novel Ashenden, based on his own espionage for Britain in World War I, influenced writers from Eric Ambler to John le Carr?. After a failed affair with an actress, he married another man’s mistress, but reserved his greatest love for a man who shared his life for nearly thirty years. He traveled the world and spoke several languages. Despite a debilitating stutter, and an acerbic and formal manner, he entertained literary celebrities and royalty at his villa in the south of France. He made a fortune from his writing--the short story “Rain” alone earned him a million dollars–yet true critical recognition, and the esteem of his literary peers, eluded him. The life of Somerset Maugham, as told by acclaimed biographer Jeffrey Meyers, is an intriguing, glamorous, complex, and extraordinary account of one of the twentieth century’s most enduring writers. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Download or read book Ashenden written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by Standard Ebooks. This book was released on 2023-01-01T20:46:22Z with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War I W. Somerset Maugham, already by then an established playwright and author, was recruited to be a British intelligence agent. These stories reflect his wartime experiences in intelligence gathering. Though fictionalized, they managed to retain enough authentic elements for Winston Churchill to advise Maugham that their publication might be a violation of the Official Secrets Act, resulting in the author burning an additional 14 stories. Set in various locales across the continent, these remaining Ashenden stories are a precursor to the jet-setting spy novels of the 1950s and 1960s. Maugham is known as a master short story writer and these stories are no exception, combining wit and realism to create memorable characters in a unique and highly critical portrait of wartime espionage. Initially released to a mixed reception—with an early review by D. H. Lawrence being especially scathing—Ashenden has since been credited as an inspiration for numerous authors, including John Le Carré, Graham Greene, and Raymond Chandler. The latter in particular was especially impressed, writing in 1950, “There are no other great spy stories—none at all. I have been searching and I know.” This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
Download or read book Mrs Craddock written by William Somerset Maugham and published by GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY. This book was released on 2015-01-23 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Example in this ebook Chapter I This book might be called also The Triumph of Love. Bertha was looking out of window, at the bleakness of the day. The sky was sombre and the clouds heavy and low; the neglected carriage-drive was swept by the bitter wind, and the elm-trees that bordered it were bare of leaf, their naked branches shivering with horror of the cold. It was the end of November, and the day was utterly cheerless. The dying year seemed to have cast over all Nature the terror of death; the imagination would not bring to the wearied mind thoughts of the merciful sunshine, thoughts of the Spring coming as a maiden to scatter from her baskets the flowers and the green leaves. Bertha turned round and looked at her aunt, cutting the leaves of a new Spectator. Wondering what books to get down from Mudie’s, Miss Ley read the autumn lists and the laudatory expressions which the adroitness of publishers extracts from unfavourable reviews. “You’re very restless this afternoon, Bertha,” she remarked, in answer to the girl’s steady gaze. “I think I shall walk down to the gate.” “You’ve already visited the gate twice in the last hour. Do you find in it something alarmingly novel?” Bertha did not reply, but turned again to the window: the scene in the last two hours had fixed itself upon her mind with monotonous accuracy. “What are you thinking about, Aunt Polly?” she asked suddenly, turning back to her aunt and catching the eyes fixed upon her. “I was thinking that one must be very penetrative to discover a woman’s emotions from the view of her back hair.” Bertha laughed: “I don’t think I have any emotions to discover. I feel ...” she sought for some way of expressing the sensation—“I feel as if I should like to take my hair down.” Miss Ley made no rejoinder, but looked again at her paper. She hardly wondered what her niece meant, having long ceased to be astonished at Bertha’s ways and doings; indeed, her only surprise was that they never sufficiently corroborated the common opinion that Bertha was an independent young woman from whom anything might be expected. In the three years they had spent together since the death of Bertha’s father the two women had learned to tolerate one another extremely well. Their mutual affection was mild and perfectly respectable, in every way becoming to fastidious persons bound together by ties of convenience and decorum.... Miss Ley, called to the deathbed of her brother in Italy, made Bertha’s acquaintance over the dead man’s grave, and the girl was then too old and of too independent character to accept a stranger’s authority; nor had Miss Ley the smallest desire to exert authority over any one. She was a very indolent woman, who wished nothing more than to leave people alone and be left alone by them. But if it was obviously her duty to take charge of an orphan niece, it was also an advantage that Bertha was eighteen, and, but for the conventions of decent society, could very well take charge of herself. Miss Ley was not unthankful to a merciful Providence on the discovery that her ward had every intention of going her own way, and none whatever of hanging about the skirts of a maiden aunt who was passionately devoted to her liberty. They travelled on the Continent, seeing many churches, pictures, and cities, in the examination of which their chief aim appeared to be to conceal from one another the emotions they felt. Like the Red Indian who will suffer the most horrid tortures without wincing, Miss Ley would have thought it highly disgraceful to display feeling at some touching scene. She used polite cynicism as a cloak for sentimentality, laughing that she might not cry—and her want of originality herein, the old repetition of Grimaldi’s doubleness, made her snigger at herself. She felt that tears were unbecoming and foolish. “Weeping makes a fright even of a good-looking woman,” she said, “but if she is ugly they make her simply repulsive.” To be continue in this ebook
Download or read book Catalina written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by eBookIt.com. This book was released on 2021-01-29 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a sixteen-year-old Spanish girl sees a religious vision while praying in a convent, she becomes involved in a series of humorous adventures. Catalina is a crippled girl, supposedly cured by divine intervention after witnessing a vision of the Virgin Mary. As a result of this, she is pressured into becoming a nun in a Carmelite convent. The Bishop of Segovia, himself undergoing a crisis of faith, becomes involved in the debate about the debt owed to god by Catalina for her cure, but the girl resists all attempts to control her life, determined to marry the man she loves. She joins a troupe of strolling players and becomes the most famous actress in all of Spain.
Download or read book A Man of Honour written by William Somerset Maugham and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Summing Up written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Summing Up" by W. Somerset Maugham. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
Download or read book A William Somerset Maugham Encyclopedia written by Samuel Rogal and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1997-05-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides information on Maugham's life and career. Discusses important biographical and literary events in the author's life.
Download or read book The Skeptical Romancer written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: W. Somerset Maugham was one of the seminal writers of the twentieth century, and his travel writing has long been considered among his finest work. Now, acclaimed travel writer Pico Iyer maps out a masterful tour of these vivid, evocative pieces that are collected here for the first time. Maugham worked as a secret agent in Russia, published novels in London, staged plays in New York, and traveled throughout Europe, Asia, India, and the United States, chronicling his travels, wherever he went, with exceptional insight. Beginning with “In the Land of the Blessed Virgin” and culminating in “A Partial View,” Iyer selects vignettes of Maugham’s razor-sharp prose that track his transformation from a boyish traveler in Spain to a worldly man of letters. This is Maugham at his most keenly observant, direct, and powerful.
Download or read book The Painted Veil written by William Somerset Maugham and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1925 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kitty Fane's affair with Assistant Colonial Secretary Townsend is interrupted when she is taken from Hong Kong by her vengeful bacteriologist husband to work in a cholera epidemic.
Download or read book The Hero written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hero by W. Somerset Maugham 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. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
Download or read book W Somerset Maugham written by Stanley Archer and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the only series to provide in-depth critical introductions to major modern and contemporary short story writers worldwide. Each volume offers: -- A comprehensive overview of the artist's short fiction -- including detailed analyses of every significant story -- Interviews, essays, memoirs and other biographical materials -- often previously unpublished -- A representative selection of critical responses -- A comprehensive primary bibliography, a selected bibliography of important criticism, a chronology of the artist's life and works and an index
Download or read book Points of View written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Cosmopolitans written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-01 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Cosmopolitans" by W. Somerset Maugham. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
Download or read book Then And Now written by W. Somerset Maugham and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-02-05 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maugham found a parallel to the turmoil of our own times in the duplicity, intrigue and sensuality of the Italian Renaissance. Then and Now enters the world of Machiavelli, and covers three important months in the career of that crafty politician, worldly seducer and high priest of schemers.
