‘The modern writer who has influenced me the most’ George Orwell

Crippled sixteen-year-old Catalina is the one person unable to join in the festivities of the Feast of the Assumption. But then she has a vision of the Virgin, and is miraculously cured. In the dark days of the Spanish Inquisition, such a claim to blessedness has serious consequences, especially when Catalina seems more inclined to obey her heart than the demands of the Church.

The last of Maugham’s novels, Catalina is a romantic celebration of Spain and a delightfully mischievous satire on absolutism.