Everyman's Library Collected Stories of W. Somerset Maugham: Introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare

A well printed and bound book by your favourite author, Somerset Maugham.A reading pleasure..

Eine unvergleichlich britische Stimme. Die Kurzgeschichten von W S Maugham sind ein ideales Geschenk für jeden GB Reisenden oder deutschen Expat.

I found this book hard to put down. Although some of the physical descriptions of characters are often perfunctory and repetitive, the psychology, very much of its time, is forensic and the writing is sheer clarity and not dated in any way. The narratives are often tragic but there is a great deal of drole humour in them. Judgement is left to the reader. The book is beautifully produced like all Everyman editions.

W Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), English playwright, novelist, and short story writer, was one of the most famous writers in the first half of the twentieth century. Yet he's not one of the writers people now recognize most from that time. He is well known, for sure, but his stature seems to pale in comparison to other writers of that era, such as Faulkner, Joyce, and Woolf. I think this is because Maugham wrote in such a business-like fashion, without any frills, while his contemporaries were experimenting and creating what would become known as modernist literature. And even those who know him now usually connect him back to his most famous novels- Of Human Bondage, The Painted Veil, The Moon & Sixpence- more so than his short stories. But Maugham was a formidable short story writer, writing more than 120, 31 of which comprise this collection.Maugham meticulously followed a daily writing schedule, and this consistency shows in his work. I've never read a collection- especially one of this length- that was so consistently entertaining. There is a rhythm that transcends the stories and makes 800+ pages fly by: he seems to churn great story after great story with ease. The stories are autobiographical and reflect the exciting life he led. Many are set in the Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, or China, where Maugham traveled extensively in the 20's and 30's chronicling the lives of the Colonialist English. The last 200 pages of this collection contain a selection from The Ashendon Stories, about a writer-turned spy in WWI, which Maugham himself was.Despite the plain style, there is lots of suspense in these stories. There's love and hate and murders to solve and affairs to uncover. Maugham is a keen observer of human nature. He's writing about real people from his travels, so often it seems as if Maugham's simply narrating what he sees when opposing forces are set in front of him. Not surprisingly, isolation is a big theme (and source of conflict) in the colonial stories. Some of the more poignant moments in his work are when Maugham shows the rituals they performed- like The Resident (term for the governor) in "The Outstation" who dressed formally every night for dinner, even while eating alone- to provide the illusion of their old life. And despite Maugham's seeming anti-Romanticism throughout many of the stories, the collection closes with "The Sanatorium", a story where love conquers even death.This is a great collection and definitely worth the time.

beautiful book