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Short Stories: Volume 2: British and Irish Authors Read Their Own Work (The Spoken Word)

Short Stories: Volume 2: British and Irish Authors Read Their Own Work (The Spoken Word): Review of Maugham's Reading of His Short Story
This is a three CD set of historic recordings: authors reading their own work. W. Somerset Maugham reads one of his short stories, "The Wash Tub," in one of the audio tracks. We will look at what this CD set contains and some information about Maugham's reading.

Audio Book Recording:  Maugham's "The Wash Tub" 
Different from the…

W. Somerset Maugham Reading the Three Fat Women of Antibes. Gigolo & Gigolette

W. Somerset Maugham Reading the 3 Fat Women of Antibes. Gigolo & Gigolette.
This is a short review of an historic audio book recording, of Maugham reading his two of his own short stories: "The Three Fat Women of Antibes"and "Gigolo and Gigolette."

This is a terrific object to possess for Maugham's admirers. For an hour one listens to how Maugham reads his own stories with a variety of tones and cadence. The experience is simply wonderful. The three women came impres…

Three Films By Somerset Maugham - Trio / Encore / Quartet

Three Films By Somerset Maugham - Trio / Encore / Quartet [DVD]
This is a collection of films based on three of Maugham's short story collections with the same title. Quite a few of the endings are changed, presumably from the caution that the author's sardonic humour may offend the sensibility of some filmgoers. Unfortunately I haven't read these three collections so I can't say if they were published as such in these volumes.
The most interesting thing about the collection is …

Trading Places: Somerset Maugham's Tales from Abroad

Hooper, Glenn. "Trading Places: Somerset Maugham's Tales from Abroad." Journal of the Short Story in English 29(1997): 2-11.

This article looks at three short story collections, The Trembling of a LeafThe Casuarina Tree and Ah King, and one story from On a Chinese Screen.

Hooper studies these short stories as colonial narratives recording the search for racial identity and examines Maugham's query at different levels on the relationship between the self and the place in whic…

British Literary Travellers in Southeast Asia in an Era of Colonial Retreat

Christie, Clive J. "British Literary Travellers in Southeast Asia in an Era of Colonial Retreat." Modern Asian Studies 28 (1994): 673-737.

This is an excellent study on British travel writers who visited Southeast Asia from 1920s to 1950s, such as H.W. Ponder, R.H. Bruce-Lockhart, Osbert Sitwell, Graham Greene, Harold Nicolson, etc., and of course, Maugham.

Christie compares the different impressions from these writers on places and changes that occurred during the time of their visit…

W. Somerset Maugham. The Critical Heritage

Curtis, Anthony and John Whitehead, ed. W. Somerset Maugham. The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge, 1987.

This is a collection of contemporary reviews on Maugham's work, which is a very useful manual for studying the reception of Maugham's books during his life time, from his very first production to the last. As the editors confess, it is quite impossible to enclose in one volume all that has been written during a professional writer's career, especially one as prolific as Maugh…

Artists and Hacks: Maugham's Cakes and Ale

Palmer, R. Barton. "Artists and Hacks: Maugham's Cakes and Ale." South Atlantic Review 46 (1981): 54-63.

This article examines the relationship between Of Human Bondageand Cakes and Ale, and based on the comparison reevaluates the merits of the latter. The critic identifies Willie Ashenden here as different from the usual narrator in other Maugham stories, for he is involved in the story instead of being a stander-by observing others' follies. He sees the novel as mainly conce…

W. Somerset Maugham: Anglo-American Agent in Revolutionary Russia

Jeffreys-Jones, Rhondri. "W. Somerset Maugham: Anglo-American Agent in Revolutionary Russia." American Quarterly 28 (1976): 90-106.

This article, at the outset, sounds very promising, with the intention to review Maugham's accomplishment as a spy. However, the reader is hit on the face by a blatant factual error in the very first sentence: "W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM (1874-1966)." I don't think there is any question as to the date of Maugham's death.

With a bruise on on…

W. Somerset Maugham and His World

Raphael, Frederic. W. Somerset Maugham and His World. London: Thames and Hudson, 1976.

After reading Robin Maugham's account of his uncle, the beginning of this book is inevitably dull, but the readers get their reward by persevering. A lot of factual information and repeated episodes about Maugham is recounted in a very dry manner at the beginning, but then the book picks up its pace.

Raphael offers some interesting observations of Maugham from his friends and acquaintances, such as the im…

Somerset and All the Maughams

Maugham, Robin. Somerset and All the Maughams. London: Heinemann, 1966.


Written by W. Somerset Maugham's nephew, this book contains a lot of moving passages on a more private Willie (as I will call him in order to differentiate him from his nephew, the author of this book). The book is separated into two main parts, the first of which is an account of the genealogical study of the Maugham family that Robin carried out. It is interesting for those who are intrigued by such topic. It falls sh…

W. Somerset Maugham. A Candid Portrait

Pfeiffer, Karl G. W. Somerset Maugham. A Candid Portrait. London: Gollancz, 1959.

Pfeiffer was a personal friend of Maugham. After the disappointment of Maugham changing his mind about authorising him to write his biography, Pfeiffer gathered anecdotes and some brief analysis of Maugham as a person and a writer in this informal book, published during Maugham's life time. He did sound very proud to have been Maugham's friend which, to be honest, I would have been too.

For those who are f…

Somerset Maugham at Eighty

Cordell, Richard A. "Somerset Maugham at Eighty." College English 15 (1954): 201-207.

Cordell wrote a book on Maugham as early as 1937, and later in 1961. In this article, he gives a general overview of Maugham's achievement and predicts his future reception and influence.

He foresees, among all Maugham's work, several books that posterity will probably continue reading. For novels, he lists Liza of LambethMrs. CraddockOf Human BondageMoon and Sixpence and Cakes and Ale;…

Elegy for Iris

Bayley, John. Elegy for Iris. 1999.


Written by Iris Murdoch's husband; Bayley remembers their life together as lover and husband and wife; the memory is mingled with the sad and inevitable present in which Iris is suffering from the Alzheimer's Disease. Recounting a trip to Bangkok when the first signs of AD starts to lurk in the background, Bayley mentions in passing the still overwhelming presence of Maugham in Southeast Asia (not unlike Hemingway in Spain, I would say):
Our suite, furn…

Bag of Bones

King, Stephen. Bag of Bones. 1998


One of Stephen King's thrillers. As usual I find King's ruminations a little overdone. I enjoy many of his novels, but one needs tremendous patience to get over the words to find the story, sort of like eating a gigantic steamed artichoke; after a while, you wonder if you shouldn't have ordered a dish with only the artichoke hearts instead.

Here are the passages on Maugham:
Yet the writer who had bound us closest together was no college-friendly poet o…

Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb

Dick, Philip K. Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb. 1965.


This is a terrific book. After the explosion of the nuclear bomb, the only communication the survivors has that helps unite them is upheld by Walt Dangerfield, the astronaut who is supposed to colonize Mars with his wife but is instead doomed to be trapped in his spaceship orbitting the Earth as a satellite. He becomes the disc jockey of this post-apocalyptic world. He starts to read the books he has with him and for the p…

The Catcher in the Rye

Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. 1951.


Holden Caulfield likes Of Human Bondage but is not too fond of its author:
You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham, though. I read it last summer. It's a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn't want to call Somerset Maugham up. I don't know. He just isn't that kind of a guy I'd want to call up, that's all. I'd rather call old Thomas Hardy up.I wonder if he would change his mind after reading Cakes and Ale..…

Tropic of Cancer

Miller, Henry. Tropic of Cancer. 1934.


Recently I was rereading this "scandalous" book. When Miller is relating his struggle in Paris, he mentions Maugham:
Indigo Sky swept clear of fleecy clouds, gaunt trees infinitely extended, their black boughs gesticulating like a sleepwalker. Somber, spectral trees, their trunks pale as cigar ash. A silence supreme and altogether European. Shutters drawn, shops barred. A red glow here and there to mark a tryst. Brusque the facades, almost forbiddi…

The Moon and Sixpence - W. Somerset Maugham

The Moon and Sixpence(New York: Doran, 1919)

My copy is the secondary state of the American first edition. I bought it mainly for the misspelling of Maugham's name on the cover and the spine. 

I finished rereading it just now. It is a most powerful and engaging novel. When the book came out, it seemed that critics were very concerned about whether such a person as Charles Strickland could ever exist on this Earth. In a way, it could be that the repetitive pledging of true events on Maugham…

The Gentleman in the Parlour - W. Somerset Maugham

The Gentleman in the Parlour. A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong (London: Heinemann, 1930)

As can be seen in the picture, this is a beautiful book, even as a battered copy. The gold leaf letters on the cover is still luminous. It is elaborately decorated by a dragon and on the spine, a pagoda. My first edition copy did not come with a jacket.   

This is one of Maugham's travel books describing his journey, as stated in the title, from Burma to Vietnam. 

Somehow the opening reminds …

Revealing Mr. Maugham?

Revealing Mr. Maugham(2012) is the new documentary on W. Somerset Maugham directed by Michael House. One can buy it through Amazon by requesting a copy (either PAL or NTSC) made. 
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting too much of it because so far biographies about Maugham have not been too successful. I attribute this to the fact that Maugham writes so much better about himself that it leaves other people’s efforts pale before his Summing Up (1938), A Writer’s Notebook (1949), or the semi-autobiographic…