Books with author William Somerset Maugham

The Trembling of a Leaf by W. Somerset Maugham is a collection of short stories set in the South Pacific. All deal with similar themes: the relationship between the islands’ native population and the foreigners (mostly British and American) who visit and live there. Most of the stories deal primarily with the foreigners, the natives playing supporting roles as wives, bystanders, store owners, petitioners, and so on. The stories also tend to feature two foreigners of different minds on a subject: the place of Christianity and missionaries on the islands, the proper way of relating to the indigenous population, the merits of the British vs. native way of life. In most of the stories there was at least one someone who was dreadfully unhappy, often because of cultural misunderstandings or incompatibilities. I found the tensions fascinating and well portrayed. Several of the stories also include a tale within a tale. Often a story’s main character spends most of the story relating something he heard about or that happened to him earlier. This structure gives the stories a depth I often find lacking in the form in general and allows Maugham to explore both tales as well as the narrator or main character’s feelings toward or the consequences of the innermost story.

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Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.

Excerpt from The Merry-Go-RoundWith one of her relations only, Miss Dwarris found it need ful to observe a certain restraint, for Miss Ley, perhaps the most distant of her cousins, was as plain-spoken as herself, and had, besides, a far keener wit whereby she could turn rash statements to the utter ridicule of the Speaker. Nor did Miss Dwarris precisely dislike this independent Spirit; she looked upon her in fact with a certain degree of affection and not a little fear. Miss Ley, seldom lacking a repartee, ap peared really to enjoy the verbal contests, from which, by her greater urbanity, readiness, and knowledge, she usually emerged victorious: it confounded, but at the same time almost amused, the elder lady that a woman so much poorer than herself, with no smaller claims than others to the cov eted inheritance, should venture not only to be facetious at her expense, but even to carry war into her very camp. Miss Ley, really not grieved to find some one to whom without prickings of conscience she could speak her whole mind, took a grim pleasure in pointing out to her cousin the poor logic of her observations or the foolish unreason of her acts. N o cherished Opinion of Miss Dwarris was safe from satire - even her evangelicism was laughed at, and the rich old woman, un used to argument, was easily driven into self-contradiction.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.