Showing results by author "W. Somerset Maugham" in All Categories

Charles Strickland, a conventional stockbroker, abandons his wife and children for Paris and Tahiti, to live his life as a painter. While his betrayal of family, duty and honour gives him the freedom to achieve greatness, his decision leads to an obsession which carries severe implications.

Renowned English surgeon Arthur Burdon is engaged to the beautiful Margaret Dauncey, who is studying art in Paris. The match is met with approval from all sides, and everyone is happy - until the mysterious Oliver Haddo enters the picture. Both Arthur and his fiancée dislike the enormously fat and eccentric Oliver but are fascinated by his stories of black magic, by his demonstrations of a power that seems inhuman. And while they scoff at his boasts, their dislike turns to loathing.

Somerset Maugham set out on an extraordinary trip in September of 1922. He would remain abroad for nine months and end up traveling by canoe, riverboat, rickshaw and mule from Rangoon to Mandalay in Upper Burma, down through Thailand to Bangkok, then to Phnom Penh and across the jungle by river to Angkor Wat. From there he went down river to Saigon, then by ship to Hue and Haiphong. He ends the audiobook with an anecdotal story of his fellow passengers while on shipboard to Haiphong.

The Moon and Sixpence is a fictionalized biography of the artist Paul Gauguin. Charles Strickland, a thinly veiled Gauguin, deserts his wife and children to become a painter. In Paris, he is indifferent to the friendship offered by a fellow artist, Dirk Stroeve, but it is Stroeve and his wife Blanche who take Strickland in when he falls ill. It is only a matter of time before Strickland again devastates those around him by running away with Blanche.

William Somerset Maugham's remarkable first novel was such an instant success that the 23-year-old medical student left school to become a full-time author. Liza, a vibrant but poverty-stricken London girl, is the most graceful and daring dancer that anyone has ever seen, wildly moving to the music of the Italian organ player on Old Kent Road. But her bright light begins to dim as the tragic effects of illness and poverty overtake her body, if not her spirit.

A breathtaking story of a woman marrying, growing up, bravely persevering, and seeing what traditionally was a man's point of view with the insights of a woman growing up in the same way. An insightful novel in so many ways.

On his way home from a remote Pacific island, Dr Saunders travels with two strangers: the treacherous Captain Nichols, and Fred, a handsome Australian with a shadowy past. Driven to shelter from a storm on the island of Banda, the trio meets good-natured Erik Christessen and his fiancée, the cool and beautiful Louise. A tense, exotic tale of love, jealousy, murder and suicide, which evolved from a passage in Maugham's earlier masterpiece, The Moon and Sixpence.

The Painted Veil is the story of Kitty Garstin, a young woman living a high social life, who marries Walter Fane, a man that’s declared his love for Kitty, just to avoid being upstaged by her younger and less attractive sister getting married first. Shortly after the marriage, they depart England and head to China where Walter, a bacteriologist and physician, is stationed.

Enter the fascinating world of colonial-era China with W. Somerset Maugham's 'The Painted Veil.' Follow the story of Kitty Fane, a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage, as she navigates the complexities of love, betrayal, and redemption in a foreign land. Experience the power of literature to transport us to another time and place and to illuminate the human experience with depth and nuance.https://www.solgood.org - Check out our Streaming Service for our full collection of audiobooks, podcasts, short stories, & 10 hour sounds for sleep and relaxation at our website W. Somerset Maugham, ...

Set in the time of the infamous Spanish Inquisition, Catalina is a novel both richly historical and affectingly human. Two eminent persons, natives of the city, were arriving after an absence of many years, and great doings had been arranged in their honor. In the Lady Chapel of the church a crippled girl prayed to the Blessed Virgin whose day it was, too. No greater things were planned for the girl, Catalina, but greater things awaited her.

'The Rain' Collection of short stories centres on the destructive and regenerative force of rain—physically, emotionally, psychologically and as a metaphor for life. From human cruelty to human determination, stories set in several locations, each showcasing the universality of anger, loss, fear, sadness, joy, hopes and dreams.

In the winter of 1919 Somerset Maugham, at the age of 45, undertook an arduous journey up the Yangtze River in China. Ever the astute observer of people and places, he wrote down his experiences and collected them into 58 exquisite vignettes which were subsequently published a few years later. No one is spared his searching intelligence, especially the company managers, salesmen, missionaries, bureaucrats, military officials and adventurers he encounters.

En esta novela que es considerada, creo que con razón, como una de las más importantes del siglo XX, el autor nos cuenta como una experiencia vivida, la historia de Larry Darrel. Joven americano nacido en una familia bien situada en Chicago. Cuando Larry vuelve de la guerra, no encuentra sentido a la vida que le espera, y que todo el mundo cree que aceptará encantado: casarse con Isabel, una joven de familia bien de Chicago para anquilosarse en un trabajo que no le interesa, pero que sin duda perpetuaría esa clase de vida de la alta sociedad....

http://www.adfreebooks.com - 500+ audiobooks, all ad freeThe wife of a plantation manager in "British Malaysia" shoots a man of their acquaintance while her husband is away from home. She claims that the man she shot had attempted to rape her. Her lawyer supposes that her defense will be rather straightforward until his law clerk informs him that a blackmailer possesses evidence that will incriminate her. The defendant and her lawyer must determine whether it is best to 'explain away' the potentially damning implications of the titular letter or pay the sum demanded for its suppression.

Julia Lambert is in her prime, the greatest actress in England. Off stage, however, she is bored by her handsome husband, coquettish, and undisciplined. She is at first flattered and amused by the attentions of a shy and eager young fan, but before long Julia is amazed to find herself falling wildly, dangerously, in love.

"The Moon and Sixpence" is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, first published in 1919. It is told in episodic form by a first-person narrator, in a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire to become an artist. The story is based on the life of the painter Paul Gauguin. A stunning classic by a master.

Autobiographical without being an autobiography, confessional without disclosing his private self, The Summing Up, written when Maugham was sixty-four, is an inimitable expression of a personal credo. It is not only a classic avowal of a professional author's ideas about style, literature, art, drama and philosophy, but also an illuminating insight into this great writer's craft.

Maugham found a parallel to the turmoil of our own times in the duplicity, intrigue, and sensuality of the Italian Renaissance. Then and Now enters the world of Machiavelli, and covers three important months in the career of that crafty politician, worldly seducer, and high priest of schemers.

Winner of the 2003 Audie Award for Classic Fiction, this is an unparalleled presentation of Maugham's stories, complete with sound effects and music.

El gran novelista ingles Sumerset Maugham se aparto de sus acostumbradas obras de exploracion psicologica en La Luna y Seis Peniques, donde en la historia del financista Strickland que abandona a su familia para dedicarse a la pintura en Haiti, hizo una biografia novelada de Paul Gauguin, el amigo de Van Gogh y uno de los grandes precursores del arte moderno.