The Summing Up - Somerset Maugham

Short Stories - Somerset Maugham

and Noel Coward knew some of them and successfully cast them in classic plays, such as Brief Encounter, Separate Tables and The Winslow Boy. Maugham, in going further afield has added the misfits who found escape far away from an unfriendly home country and given us their stories so that we may sympathise, disapprove or chuckle. Yet he does not lack sympathy despite the ironic humour, and for this I like him. Amazon have the compete short stories of Somerset Maugham used and new for $5.25. ...

Short Stories - Somerset Maugham

Delightful to read at first but became a little thin, in parts, as I got further into it. Some of the stories were pot-boilers, some very good, all clearly, if not always beautifully, written. Some are also cliched as hell (at least at towards the farther end of the 20th century), but some others I think I'll still be reading with enjoyment as far ahead as I can imagine. Maugham was never taken seriously as a writer by the lit-snobs and critics of his day, and I don't suppose he's taken seriously now by academics, but he outlasted many of the critical darlings of his day and will no doubt outlast many of the academic darlings of ours, and I don't think anyone who loves ...