W. Somerset Maugham

Rich in humour, conflict and depth, The Circle follows Lady Kitty, who had given up a stuffy life with her titled husband to run away with a young adventurer, as she watches her niece, Elizabeth about to make the same mistake 20 years later. Glynis Johns, Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger starred in a hit revival of Maugham's sparkling comedy of manners on Broadway.-3 women, 4 men

An episodic novel about Charles Strickland by the author of "Of Human Bondage."

W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage is generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature. Although Maugham stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention." Of Human Bondage was ranked in the top 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Maugham indicates in his foreword that he derived the title from a passage in Baruch Spinoza's Ethics: "The impotence of man to govern or restrain the emotions I call bondage, for a man who is under their control is not his own master ... so that he is often forced to follow the worse, although he see the better before him." Of Human Bondage initially was criticized in both England and the United States; the New York World described the romantic obsession of the protagonist Philip Carey as "the sentimental servitude of a poor fool". The influential American novelist and critic Theodore Dreiser rescued the novel, referring to it as a work of genius and comparing it to a Beethoven symphony. His review gave the book a lift, and it has never been out of print since.

This compilation contains three complete novels and eight major short stories from the canon of one of the twentieth century’s most enduringly popular fiction writers. From London to Hong Kong, from Paris to Pago Pago, in Samoa or Malaya or on a Tahitian tropical isle, the men and women in this collection of masterfully crafted tales inhabit exotic, mysterious worlds?and at their own peril invade the dark territory of the human heart. Somerset Maugham, a noted English novelist, playwright, and author of masterly short stories, spent several months in the Pacific in 1916 and 1917 during an interlude in his service in British intelligence during World War I. Several of his works have been made into movies and plays, including Razor’s Edge, Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale, Rain, and The Moon and Sixpence. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction?novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

A nine year old boy's mother dies shortly after the death of his father. He is sent to live with his aunt and uncle in a small East-Anglian village, where his uncle is vicar. This uncle holds the boy's significant inheritance for him until he comes of age, giving him unlimited power over the boy. The novel is considered a masterpiece, and is also highly autobiographical, though Maugham claimed: "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention."