Collected Stories

In this edition of his collected shorter fiction we can see why Somerset Maugham, celebrated as the author of Cakes and Ale and Of Human Bondage, is also regarded as a master of the short story. Open this substantial volume at any page and you will find evidence of his extraordinary art. Without narrative tricks and in a plain prose style, Maugham introduces us to the enormous range of characters and experiences he encountered in an unusually long life and recorded with the cool accuracy of a good doctor diagnosing disease. There are many famous stories here; some of them made into films such as The Force of Circumstance, Rain, P & O and The Colonel’s Lady; others, less famous, charting mundane but mysterious events in all four quarters of the world.