Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader
Facebook Twitter Pinterest <Embed>
  • List Price: $15.95
  • Save: $6.70 (42%)
FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books.
Only 1 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
The Painted Veil has been added to your Cart
Want it Thursday, Aug. 18? Order within and choose this date at checkout.
Ship to:
Select a shipping address:
To see addresses, please
or
Please enter a valid US zip code.
or
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.
Used: Acceptable | Details
Sold by giggil
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Acceptable

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and .

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you increase your sales. We invite you to learn more about Fulfillment by Amazon .

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See all 2 images

The Painted Veil Paperback – November 14, 2006

by
W. Somerset Maugham (Author)
› Visit Amazon's W. Somerset Maugham Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
W. Somerset Maugham (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 249 customer reviews
See all 39 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Price
New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
$9.48
— —
Hardcover
"Please retry"
—
$196.09 $90.00
Paperback
"Please retry"
$9.25
$5.20 $0.01
Audible, Unabridged
"Please retry"
$0.00
Free with your Audible trial
Mass Market Paperback
"Please retry"
—
$18.00 $0.48
Audio CD, Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry"
$72.00
$45.36 $12.95
Unknown Binding
"Please retry"
—
— $500.00
The Underground Railroad
The latest book club pick from Oprah
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead is a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. See more
$9.25 FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books. Only 1 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
click to open popover

Frequently Bought Together

  • The Painted Veil
  • +
  • The Razor's Edge
Total price: $20.71
Buy the selected items together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Back
  1. The Razor's Edge
    W. Somerset Maugham
    4.5 out of 5 stars 421
    Paperback
    $11.46 Prime
  2. The Moon and Sixpence
    Maugham Somerset
    4.2 out of 5 stars 150
    Paperback
    $10.00 Prime
  3. Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused
    Mike Dash
    4.2 out of 5 stars 93
    Paperback
    $11.73 Prime
  4. Cakes and Ale
    W. Somerset Maugham
    4.1 out of 5 stars 54
    Paperback
    $12.60 Prime
  5. The Painted Veil
    Naomi Watts
    4.5 out of 5 stars 1,371
    DVD
    $11.91 Prime
  6. Of Human Bondage (Bantam Classics)
    W. Somerset Maugham
    4.5 out of 5 stars 386
    Mass Market Paperback
    $4.88 Prime
Next
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
The latest book club pick from Oprah
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead is a magnificent novel chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. See more

Product Details

  • Paperback: 246 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (November 14, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307277771
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307277770
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (249 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsLessons on life
By Roger Brunyate TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on December 20, 2006
Format: Paperback
I wanted to read this book before seeing the movie, and I must say that I enjoyed it immensely. Having read most of Maugham's short stories but none of his novels, I was taken aback by the sweep and passion of this book, its strong moral center, and above all its sensitivity to feeling. Other readers have called this a feminist work, and so in a halting way it is, in that Kitty Fane, its central character, is a woman and Maugham looks unusually deeply into her soul. But at the beginning of the book she is almost the polar opposite of feminist, having been brought up by her ambitious middle-class mother to be pretty and vapid and catch a good husband. It is only after she has passed through the climax of the story that she begins to see that there can be better goals in life for a woman.

My surprise at the depth of Maugham's portrayal of Kitty is in contrast to what I have always seen as the emotional reticence of his male characters, who are portrayed rather in terms of action than of feeling; I see this as a by-product of the author's homosexuality in an era when this had to be kept hidden. Kitty's husband, Walter Fane, a young government doctor and bacteriologist in Hong Kong, though presumably heterosexual, is almost a caricature of this repressed type. Although he obviously has feelings, he is almost incapable of giving voice to them, and neither he nor Kitty can effectively communicate with one another. It is hardly surprising that Kitty should fall into an affair with a married colonial official who is all easy charm. Even when Walter discovers their liaison (masterfully evoked in the opening pages of the book), he remains cold and inscrutable; his response is to volunteer for service in a cholera-ravaged city in the Chinese interior and to take Kitty with him.Read more ›
25 Comments 247 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsGood story. Great writing.
By Ellen Hanson on January 7, 2007
Format: Paperback
"The Painted Veil" is the beautifully told story of one self-absorbed woman and what it takes for her to discover joy in loving others. Every novel should have at least one character who changes and grows even half as much as this heroine. (Scene spoiler alert: My favorite scene is the last, when Kitty realizes she's always taken her father for granted, imagines how he must be feeling, and begins - finally - to treat him as a unique individual who has wants and needs separate from hers. When she can finally do this, their love is realized.)

I just saw the 2006 motion picture, and actually enjoyed it more than the book. The screenwriter enriched Somerset Maugham's classic in several ways: Kitty's husband Walter is given more depth such that his growth over the course of the story matches Kitty's. Also enriched is the backdrop. Not only is the Chinese town where much of the story takes place suffering a Cholera epidemic, but the Chinese Nationals are rising up against the British. This plot enhancement cranks up the tension of the story, and allows Walter's character to develop in a more complicated and ultimately satisfying way.

I highly recommend you read the book, then see the movie. You won't be disappointed!
2 Comments 55 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
4.0 out of 5 starsOf marriage and freedom
By Boris Bangemann on July 29, 2001
Format: Paperback
The kernel of this novel dates back to 1895 when Maugham was twenty years old and stayed in Florence to learn Italian. He came across a story in which a "husband suspecting his wife of adultery and afraid on account of her family to put her to death, took her down to his castle in the Maremma the noxious vapours of which he was confident would do the trick; but she took so long to die that he grew impatient and had her thrown out of the window." It is around this core (which is not exactly the plot line of the novel, don't worry) that Maugham developed the story of Kitty Fane, a woman who is vain, superficial and in need of appreciation. It is a story that plays in Hong Kong and China in the 1920s. Maugham knew both places from his extensive travels in the South East but, characteristically for him, he does not spill much ink on descriptions of the landscape or the natives, which is a pity. He is much more interested in his fictitious characters.
As always, Maugham is a master of drawing characters who possess all the self-importance, weakness, and suffering that underlie human existence. His characterizations are so sardonically true that he was sued two times over the book by people in Hong Kong, and had to change the name of Hong Kong into Tching-Yen, and the name of one of the characters from Lane (innocent enough, one would think) to Fane.
I was wondering why this rather obscure novel by Maugham has received nothing but glowing five-star reviews by almost exclusively female readers. The reason is that this novel is about marriage and the restraints that marriage imposes upon passion. Also, it is a classic story of a woman's spiritual awakening.Read more ›
4 Comments 132 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
4.0 out of 5 starsThe Tao Which Leads Nowhither...
By Ralph White on January 21, 2007
Format: Paperback
With The Painted Veil, Maugham is at his most masterful. It's hard to conceive of the inspiration which led to his story line; it is brilliantly creative. Such a story line deserves masterful character development, and the reader is not disappointed. From the main protagonists to the bit players, we learn the strengths and weaknesses of each in economically structured vignettes. Character is also illuminated by Maugham's narrative, as when Kitty becomes aware just how terrifying her husband's jealousy could be: "It [his mind] was like a dark and ominous landscape seen by a flash of lighting and in a moment hidden again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw." Kitty's lover is employed by the British Government, and is second in charge in that colony. She learns that the Government "doesn't want clever men ; clever men have ideas, and ideas cause trouble; they want men who have charm and tact and who can be counted on never to make a blunder." Of course her lover, Charlie Townsend, does make a blunder, and it is precisely in becoming Kitty's lover. Then, in describing the differences between the French nuns and herself, she realizes: "They spoke a different language, not only of the tongue, but of the heart." Married to a man she realizes she hardly knows, she sees them as "two little drops in a river that flowed silently towards the unknown; two little drops that to themselves had so much individuality, and to the onlooker were but an indistinguishable part of the river." Of the separate, special motivations that each individual has, Maugham says, "Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us in whiskey and some in love. It is all the same Way, and it leads nowhither."

Maugham exposes two shortcomings in this novel.Read more ›
3 Comments 52 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsI enjoy Mr. Maugham's writing - inspiring story of a ...

I enjoy Mr. Maugham's writing - inspiring story of a young woman who was selfish and self absorbed and found herself through service to others. Great life lesson!

Published 7 days ago by brian toolson
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Good read!

Published 7 days ago by Shamim
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Loved it!

Published 28 days ago by Sandy Capella
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Excellent

Published 1 month ago by Karen Davis
5.0 out of 5 starsAbsolutely amazing.. Somerset knows women

Absolutely amazing..Somerset knows women...and men....and love....andl life...Truman Capote has moved to a tie or maybe even second place...I am happily onto Mrs. Craddock now.. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent story about the human condition that is not remotely dated.

The Painted Veil once again reinforces to me that there is nothing new under the sun. Maugham's story could have taken place in 2016. Read more

Published 2 months ago by John H.
4.0 out of 5 starsWhat truth lies beneath the painted veil?

The Painted Veil is a compelling character driven story of love, infidelity and manipulation set in disease ridden China.

Published 2 months ago by llfoster
5.0 out of 5 starsI saw The Painted Veil on TV and liked the movie and decided to get...

I saw The Painted Veil on TV and liked the movie and decided to get the book to read. It was quite different from the movie but I loved the book very much. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Betty Ann
5.0 out of 5 starsThe Painted Veil

I loved this book in every sense of the word! A beautifully written book by a great author!! A treasure!

Published 3 months ago by Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 starsMaugham at his Best

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
Set in another time and another culture, (1925) The Painted Veil still conveys many truths we all must face, though, fortunately, a... Read more

Published 3 months ago by mehlsmusings

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

The Painted Veil
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: The Painted Veil
Set up a giveaway

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.