Books with author W. Somerset Maugham

Liza of Lambeth (1897) was W. Somerset Maugham's first novel, which he wrote while working as a doctor at a hospital in Lambeth, then a working class district of London. It depicts the short life and death of Liza Kemp, an 18-year-old factory worker who lives together with her aging mother in Vere Street (obviously fictional) off Westminster Bridge Road (real) in Lambeth. It gives the reader an interesting insight into the everyday lives of working class Londoners at the turn of the century.

"The Explorer" by W. Somerset Maugham. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Five years change a man, and when they have been spent in the bush fighting Boers, the changes are profound. So when Jamie Parson comes home with captain's pips and a Victoria Cross, he is no longer the boy he was. But not to his parents and Mary, his sweetheart...they expect him to fit in. Jamie can't, and shortly breaks off with Mary. Happiness remains a shadow, illusive as the Boers, and Jamie finds the moral struggle as relentless as the military.

Somerset Maugham, W. The Razor's Edge. A Novel. First American Trade Edition. New York, Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1944. 20.5cm x 14.5cm. 343 pages. Original Hardcover without dustjacket. Excellent, very good condition with only very minor signs of wear. Includes for Example: Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatized by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. The story begins through the eyes of Larry's friends and acquaintances as they witness his personality change after the War/ His rejection of conventional life and search for meaningful experience allows him to thrive while the more materialistic characters suffer reversals of fortune/ The book was twice adapted into film, first in 1946 starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney, and Herbert Marshall as Maugham, and then a 1984 adaptation starring Bill Murray/ Its epigraph reads, The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard, taken from a verse in the Katha-Upanishad. William Somerset Maugham 1874 – 1965) was a British 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. (Wikipedia)

THE HERO (1901) by W. Somerset Maugham is a complex psychological exploration of the stifling of deepest personal urges and the resulting disillusionment. James Parsons returns home after military service in South Africa and finds his worldview changed. His family's affections are oppressive, his betrothed, Mary, now seems repulsive, and life has become a hollow burden. A powerful, bittersweet, and ironic work by a true master of the human psyche.

The sea was very calm. There was no ship in sight, and the seagulls 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 crumbed under the feet that trod them. The breakwaters, which sought to prevent the unceasing encroachment of the waves, were rotten with age and green with the sea-slime. It was a desolate scene, but there was a restfulness in its melancholy; and the great silence, the suave monotony of color, might have given peace to a heart that was troubled. They could not assuage the torment of the woman who stood alone upon that spot. She did not stir; and, though her gaze was steadfast, she saw nothing. Nature has neither love nor hate, and with indifference smiles upon the light at heart and to the heavy brings a deeper sorrow. It is a great irony that the old Greek, so wise and prudent, who fancied that the gods lived utterly apart from human passions, divinely unconscious in their high palaces of grief and joy, the hope and despair, of the turbulent crowd of men, should have gone down to posterity as the apostle of brutish pleasure. But the silent woman did not look for solace. She had a vehement pride which caused her to seek comfort only in her own heart; and when, against her will, heavy tears rolled down her cheeks, she shook her head impatiently.