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Adventures in English Literature - W. Somerset Maugham
Inglis, Rewey Belle, Stauffer, Donald A., and Larsen, Cecil Evva. Adventures in English Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952.Another old book on literature, which I do not even remember ever possessing. By the look of it, it could be a secondary school textbook. In this post, we will look at the entries of W. Somerset Maugham in it.
Maugham in Adventures in English Literature
The Modern English Novel
The manner of many of these novels – Galsworthy, Stevenson, Conrad, Hardy,…
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Analysis: Artistic Expressions: Theatre (1937) by W. Somerset Maugham
Theatre (London: Heinemann, 1937)This post is about a not much talked about novel by W. Somerset Maugham. By that time Maugham has already written his last play, Sheppey (1933), and announced his retirement as a playwright.
Thus, maybe, peradventure, Maugham is having his vengeance on the theatrical world, as he is often called a “cynic" by the quarter concerned. Maugham's sense of humour on many occasions requires the readers to have the ability to laugh at themselves.
However, I …
W. Somerset Maugham in A Handbook to Literature
Holman, C. Hugh, and William Harmon, eds. A Handbook to Literature. 6th ed. New York: Macmillan, 1992.This random old books revisit has slowly turned into a reappraisal of W. Somerset Maugham's standing in the academic world. Admittedly my books are from the 90s curriculum, but I do have a relatively new shorter tenth edition of The Norton Introduction to Literature.
Not only criticisms of Maugham post an interest, their absence sometimes is more telling.
The Norton Anthology, one of th…
More Criticism of W. Somerset Maugham
Drabble, Margaret, ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.Long forgotten old books keep appearing. This can hardly be called a book of criticism, but a handbook of sort about writers who are considered worth mentioning in the history of literature, a Who's Who reference book.
I think it would be interesting to have a look at how Maugham's professional career is outlined and having known more about him, how such brief outline fares, espec…
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The Bread-Winner (1930) by W. Somerset Maugham
The Bread-Winner (London: Heinemann, 1930)This post is about The Bread-Winner. A Play in Three Acts, by W. Somerset Maugham. The Bread-Winner was first performed at the Vaudeville Theatre on 30 September 1930, and published in the same year. Maugham was by that time fifty-six and he is definitely going to give the young a piece of his mind.
The copy that I acquired is an interesting piece in itself, which I will talk more about later on.
The Bread-Winner
The Bread-Winner is a brilliant play, …
Certain W. Somerset Maugham Criticism
Recovered from storage (finally all boxes folded!) are two long forgotten books. As a matter of fact, I confess that I do not remember if I read them at all.I suspect that most likely as in the case of yesteryear's newspaper advertisements old criticism offers but a glimpse into past fashion (except perhaps for those interested in reception theory, but then, again, probably book reviews would have been more telling), however, it is amusing to have a look.
Ward, A.C. Twentieth-Century En…