From the cafe society of Paris to the British colony of Hong Kong to the lush tropical island of Tahiti, you can travel half the world in this first-time-ever collection of three of the novels that indelibly established the popular literary reputation of W. Somerset Maugham in England and America. With him, too, you can explore that perilous territory of the human heart when the In the instant bestseller The Moon and Sixpence, the novel Maugham famously based on the life of Paul Gauguin, love and art prove to be as incompatible as Europe and Tahiti, when the painter Charles Strickland (played brilliantly in the screen version by his friends, and the life of his mistress on the altar of his own genius. No less exotic than Tahiti is the cholera-ridden Hong Kong in The Painted Veil, which takes the adulterous Kitty Fans on a personal descent into hell in a steamy tale of passion hailed by Bookman as "one of the great short novels of our time." And in The Magician, a satanist takes dark and sinister revenge on the young woman who spurns him. Included in this volume, too, are five timeless short stories-inciuding "The Letter", which was made into a movie starring a memorablv murderous Bette Davis, and "Rain", the sultry tale of Crawford.
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About the Author
W. SAMERSET MAUGHAM the most widely read author since Charles Dickens died in 1965, at the age of 81.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Global Tour De Force!,
This review is from: The Great Exotic Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham (Paperback)
The ability of this man to put insight within insight into the innermost knooks and crannies of the human condition and then palce you, the reader, almost, but not quite, clautrophobically close to the action (or often a lack of) is literally mesmerizing! He was not a man easily fooled by anyone. He then endows the reader with this insight from which I, for one, leaned a great deal.Every one of his characters is keenly observed and fully fleshed into often tragic believability but always alive with their human-ness, warts and all. I miss his stories more than any others when I'm finished. This collection is a global tour de force, rich in colour, intrigue and the dust that setles on the crooked paths his characters tread. Get it, read it (several times), you won't be sorry!
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Collection, an Excellent Writer,
By Todd Vance (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Great Exotic Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham (Paperback)
Maugham claimed that he was "in the very first row of the second-raters". Maybe, but maybe not. While his style may not elevate his work to the status of "great literature," you owe it to yourself to read Maugham. This collection is a fine place to start. The Moon and Sixpence is based on the life of Paul Gaugin and The Magician is based more than loosely on Aleistar Crowley's exploits. Fascinating people who Maugham used to craft page-turning stories around. Maugham is greatly underappreciated. This is a great collection to begin exploring his work.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
IT WAS NEARLY BED-TIME and when would be in sight. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mother Superior, Oliver Haddo, Sister St Joseph, Miss Thompson, Hong Kong, Charles Strickland, Captain Nichols, Dirk Stroeve, Arthur Burdon, Blanche Stroeve, Miss Boyd, Ong Chi Seng, Tough Bill, San Francisco, Colonial Secretary, Mother Hubbard, Rose Waterford, Somerset Maugharn, Walter Fane, Eliphas Levi, English Club, Monte Carlo, Susie Boyd, Charles Townsend, Dorothy Townsend New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
IT WAS NEARLY BED-TIME and when would be in sight. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mother Superior, Oliver Haddo, Sister St Joseph, Miss Thompson, Hong Kong, Charles Strickland, Captain Nichols, Dirk Stroeve, Arthur Burdon, Blanche Stroeve, Miss Boyd, Ong Chi Seng, Tough Bill, San Francisco, Colonial Secretary, Mother Hubbard, Rose Waterford, Somerset Maugharn, Walter Fane, Eliphas Levi, English Club, Monte Carlo, Susie Boyd, Charles Townsend, Dorothy Townsend New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 5
books:
- Hound of Heaven by Thompson on page 80
- Hound Of Heaven, The (BCL1-PR English Literature) by Francis Thompson on page 80
- Tristan and Isolde: English National Opera Guide 6 (English National Opera Guides) by Richard Wagner on page 79
- The Anatomy of Melancholy (New York Review Books Classics) by Robert Burton on page 47
- Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson on page 80
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