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The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham: The World Over
681 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1932
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About the author
W. Somerset Maugham
1,807 books6,154 followersWilliam Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.
His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.
Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way.
During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.
At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.
His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.
Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way.
During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.
At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 2, 2018
Half of this book overlapped with "The Collected Stories" and "Ashenden, or the British Agent", but the other half is equally fascinating. I am so infatuated with Maugham that I am on a mission to read all what I can get of his books before moving on to other authors. I love the short story "Jane" the best among the stories collected here. The plot is not boring and is not to improbable. A plain old woman--a rich one in this case but actually it really doesn't matter she's rich or not--can still have as much vitality and as much to look forward to as everybody else. It's not often Maugham gives himself up for natural optimism, but in this story he did. I like "The Creative Impulse" too up until right before the ending. I don't want to spoil the suspense, but I have to say I enjoyed all the way until the last moment when the heroine decided what she's going to do with the problem in her hand.
I just love Maugham. I only regret that I didn't discover him sooner. I read "Moon and Sixpence" long time ago, but didn't feel anything special about it. However "Of Human Bondage", which I read last month, changed everything. My love for Maugham was fired up. I just love his work.
I just love Maugham. I only regret that I didn't discover him sooner. I read "Moon and Sixpence" long time ago, but didn't feel anything special about it. However "Of Human Bondage", which I read last month, changed everything. My love for Maugham was fired up. I just love his work.
June 6, 2020
I read this book to get in the right frame of mind to write the stories in my latest book To Gether Tales.
Many of Maugham's stories are romantic, with an ironic twist at the end. Many are set in exotic locations, the South Pacific in particular Those remind me of Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, which I also greatly enjoyed. Also, some of Maugham's recurring themes overlap with interests and speculations of my own --
- "we're none of us one self, but many"
- that we can share dreams
- that a "true" story may not be as "true" as an invented one
- that totally improbable coincidences happen all the time in ordinary life.
Many of Maugham's stories are romantic, with an ironic twist at the end. Many are set in exotic locations, the South Pacific in particular Those remind me of Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, which I also greatly enjoyed. Also, some of Maugham's recurring themes overlap with interests and speculations of my own --
- "we're none of us one self, but many"
- that we can share dreams
- that a "true" story may not be as "true" as an invented one
- that totally improbable coincidences happen all the time in ordinary life.
June 18, 2025
German Harry by William Somerset Maugham – author of A String of Beads – my note on this is at
https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... with hundreds of other reviews
10 out of 10
German Harry is so short, it probably qualifies as a ‘flash story’, and proves to me that anything (well, that I know of, it is not as if I traveled to all the libraries, museums that have Maugham documents and studied them all) written by this Magister Ludi is enchanting to me, and that is in itself exhilarating and promising
This is because I find quite a large, and increasing number of works that do not appeal – now I find it does not compel me, moves me to keep going with Dune, one of the best Science Fiction novels of all time, supposedly, and there are other examples, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau…
The other day, I have posted a note on Moon Over Africa https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... which is on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, in the love section, but somehow, I had to put it out of its (or my) misery…
German Harry takes place in The Far East ‘I was in Thursday Island and I wanted very much to go to New Guinea…’ this is the opening, and then we have the narrator take some supplies to this fellow, German Harry, people take advantage, when there is a boat, a vessel going his way, and then they are generous and send him things
‘It appeared that the hermit had lived by himself on this remote and tiny island for thirty years, and when opportunity occurred, provisions were sent to him by kindly souls. He said that he was a Dane, but in the Torres Straits, he was known as German Harry…’ this made me think of a few things, one about health issues
We all know that smoking is dangerous, but research has proved that solitude is in fact twice as deadly, so poor German or Danish Harry was in peril – there is another piece of information – oops, it is clear that I am going off the field with this, so here is your spoiler alert, leave now, while you can, albeit there is no you
Nobody is here, if anyone tried to look at this note, they left after the first line, or paragraph, and that was a smart choice…on the other hand, I have said that anything Maugham has to throw at me, I will take it, so my opinion is that his stories are stupendous, and then this one is just a couple of pages long or so…
Hence, what more can be said about it, if you are an amateur…back to the solitude, the people who live in a couple, are married or form a partnership, are happier than the divorced ones, but then somewhere under these categories, we have those who live with someone, but in a state of permanent conflict, they fight all the time
The latter group is in the worst situation, it is like having a car crash every single day, so German Harry might have had it better than those, and I can vouch for the accuracy somewhat, for I am married, but we stay in the same house for practical reasons, such as we could not afford another house, outside of this one
Well, we could, if we were to move to places like Damascus, or somewhere in this land, but in the country, a remote place, actually we tried, in 2001 – we saw the Twin Towers falling in Rosenau – and spend about there years in a small town, because we could not afford a house in the capital city, where we are now
About German Harry - ‘Thirty years before, he had been an able seaman on a sailing vessel that was wrecked in those treacherous waters. Two boats managed to get away and eventually hit upon the desert island of Trebucket. This is well out of the line of traffic and it was three years before any ship sighted the castaways…’
‘Sixteen men had landed on the island, but when at last a schooner, driven from her course by stress of weather, put in for shelter, no more than five were left. When the storm abated the skipper took four of these on board and eventually landed them at Sydney. German Harry refused to go with them. He said that during those three years he had seen such terrible things that he had a horror of his fellow-men and wished never to live with them again…’
I think we can understand the protagonist, I even sympathize with him, and I often – or always, somebody could argue – use examples from life today, to argue that this world seems crazy, the free world is very likely to be ruled by one of the most vicious, disgusting would be tyrants, called Orange Jesus
Additionally, he is worshipped by the cult members, many of them devoted evangelicals, who are supposed to avoid sin, and then they just embrace this devil, who checks all the boxes with the cardinal sins, cheating, fornication, lying, all the rest, just because he will give them fundamentalist judges and the like…
Take a look at the justices at their supreme court, the radical side, those lunatics with wives that support insurrection (they do as well), women with obsessions for flags, rebellion and civil wars, corrupt as in banana republics, they took gifts, trips in excess of a million dollars, something that would not be tolerated in decent democracy
Orange Jesus is crazy, a pathological liar, obsessed with himself – last night he ranted again ‘his crowds are the biggest, bigger that what Martin Luther had’, how sick one could be to focus on that, again and again, ad nauseam
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... with hundreds of other reviews
10 out of 10
German Harry is so short, it probably qualifies as a ‘flash story’, and proves to me that anything (well, that I know of, it is not as if I traveled to all the libraries, museums that have Maugham documents and studied them all) written by this Magister Ludi is enchanting to me, and that is in itself exhilarating and promising
This is because I find quite a large, and increasing number of works that do not appeal – now I find it does not compel me, moves me to keep going with Dune, one of the best Science Fiction novels of all time, supposedly, and there are other examples, Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau…
The other day, I have posted a note on Moon Over Africa https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... which is on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, in the love section, but somehow, I had to put it out of its (or my) misery…
German Harry takes place in The Far East ‘I was in Thursday Island and I wanted very much to go to New Guinea…’ this is the opening, and then we have the narrator take some supplies to this fellow, German Harry, people take advantage, when there is a boat, a vessel going his way, and then they are generous and send him things
‘It appeared that the hermit had lived by himself on this remote and tiny island for thirty years, and when opportunity occurred, provisions were sent to him by kindly souls. He said that he was a Dane, but in the Torres Straits, he was known as German Harry…’ this made me think of a few things, one about health issues
We all know that smoking is dangerous, but research has proved that solitude is in fact twice as deadly, so poor German or Danish Harry was in peril – there is another piece of information – oops, it is clear that I am going off the field with this, so here is your spoiler alert, leave now, while you can, albeit there is no you
Nobody is here, if anyone tried to look at this note, they left after the first line, or paragraph, and that was a smart choice…on the other hand, I have said that anything Maugham has to throw at me, I will take it, so my opinion is that his stories are stupendous, and then this one is just a couple of pages long or so…
Hence, what more can be said about it, if you are an amateur…back to the solitude, the people who live in a couple, are married or form a partnership, are happier than the divorced ones, but then somewhere under these categories, we have those who live with someone, but in a state of permanent conflict, they fight all the time
The latter group is in the worst situation, it is like having a car crash every single day, so German Harry might have had it better than those, and I can vouch for the accuracy somewhat, for I am married, but we stay in the same house for practical reasons, such as we could not afford another house, outside of this one
Well, we could, if we were to move to places like Damascus, or somewhere in this land, but in the country, a remote place, actually we tried, in 2001 – we saw the Twin Towers falling in Rosenau – and spend about there years in a small town, because we could not afford a house in the capital city, where we are now
About German Harry - ‘Thirty years before, he had been an able seaman on a sailing vessel that was wrecked in those treacherous waters. Two boats managed to get away and eventually hit upon the desert island of Trebucket. This is well out of the line of traffic and it was three years before any ship sighted the castaways…’
‘Sixteen men had landed on the island, but when at last a schooner, driven from her course by stress of weather, put in for shelter, no more than five were left. When the storm abated the skipper took four of these on board and eventually landed them at Sydney. German Harry refused to go with them. He said that during those three years he had seen such terrible things that he had a horror of his fellow-men and wished never to live with them again…’
I think we can understand the protagonist, I even sympathize with him, and I often – or always, somebody could argue – use examples from life today, to argue that this world seems crazy, the free world is very likely to be ruled by one of the most vicious, disgusting would be tyrants, called Orange Jesus
Additionally, he is worshipped by the cult members, many of them devoted evangelicals, who are supposed to avoid sin, and then they just embrace this devil, who checks all the boxes with the cardinal sins, cheating, fornication, lying, all the rest, just because he will give them fundamentalist judges and the like…
Take a look at the justices at their supreme court, the radical side, those lunatics with wives that support insurrection (they do as well), women with obsessions for flags, rebellion and civil wars, corrupt as in banana republics, they took gifts, trips in excess of a million dollars, something that would not be tolerated in decent democracy
Orange Jesus is crazy, a pathological liar, obsessed with himself – last night he ranted again ‘his crowds are the biggest, bigger that what Martin Luther had’, how sick one could be to focus on that, again and again, ad nauseam
Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se
There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know
As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works
‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’
‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’
“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”
March 13, 2020
It's significantly less racist than Volume 1, but still reflects a time that I wish were long past, but which still resonates today. For example, the last story is about a loan woman onboard a ship traveling with all men, and the men are so bored with her talk that they order one of the lower ranking officers to **** her so that she shuts up.
February 16, 2014
I enjoyed reading these stories in Volume II as much as I did reading those in Volume I. He has an eye and ear for personalities and is a wonderful story-teller. I come away feeling as though I've met so many new people.
February 10, 2024
I thought volume one had better stories but maybe I just tired of his style.
June 14, 2021
I'm not naturally fond of short stories. I enjoy the full development of stories and characters. I prefer full course dinners than just appetizers. So therefore I found this entire volume tedious to get through. However, this is no fault to Maugham, he is a terrific writer. He's so talented that you forget what you're reading is actually written by him. You forget the natural flow of conversation between characters and the author are all written by the author.
There are a few stories that are wonderful. The Lotus Eater was my favourite, as it took me back to my days in Capri. I dotted my mini-reviews on the table of content pages and there were quite a few 4 dot stories. When Somerset writes about dinner parties, cocktails, and high brow conversation I get very readily excited, so therefore I gravitated to those.
For the stories I ranked 4 and 5, I would definitely re-read.
There are a few stories that are wonderful. The Lotus Eater was my favourite, as it took me back to my days in Capri. I dotted my mini-reviews on the table of content pages and there were quite a few 4 dot stories. When Somerset writes about dinner parties, cocktails, and high brow conversation I get very readily excited, so therefore I gravitated to those.
For the stories I ranked 4 and 5, I would definitely re-read.
December 21, 2022
Got this book from a co-worker after she heard that I like classic fiction.
All the stories were pleasant to great. Maugham, for me, was an easy read. Most of the stories were not many pages. Which is one reason I pulled it off my shelf.
I was surprised at the amount of stories that had murder, death, and other awful crimes. But, they are a minority of the stories collected in the volume.
All the stories were pleasant to great. Maugham, for me, was an easy read. Most of the stories were not many pages. Which is one reason I pulled it off my shelf.
I was surprised at the amount of stories that had murder, death, and other awful crimes. But, they are a minority of the stories collected in the volume.
October 14, 2021
From the delightful to the sublime, 61 short stories by my favorite writer, Somerset Maugham. First read once upon a starry-eyed time, was it early 2014? Those first short story readings unleashed my adoration of almost anything by Maugham. The goods came in the form of old paperbacks, volumes 1 to 4. This rereading has been compiled into a boxed set of two full-bodied hardbound books, and cements my love for Maugham's storytelling oeuvre. Like a seasoned chef, he can whip up stories of different flavours based on the same basic recipe, all made from scratch. First published in 1921, I have the 1953 edition, and this hardbound book is the second of two volumes, containing "all the stories written that are not included in East and West," and comes in a charming boxed set. Very old world, I craved a mint julep and a cheroot each time I reached for the book.
Though the book is hefty, every story is every (word) inch worth the read. And worth the reread. The preface is interesting for Maugham's discussions on publishing and happily, digresses to the art of his storytelling ("Stories are lying about at every street corner, but the writer may not be there at the moment they are waiting to be picked up or he may be looking at a shop window and pass them unnoticed."), and ends with the cryptic "I have written my last story."
Maugham's the word!
* Since Volume 1 has 30 "short" stories, this similarly-sized second volume, with 61 "shorter" stories, would classify as flash fiction in today's parlance.
Though the book is hefty, every story is every (word) inch worth the read. And worth the reread. The preface is interesting for Maugham's discussions on publishing and happily, digresses to the art of his storytelling ("Stories are lying about at every street corner, but the writer may not be there at the moment they are waiting to be picked up or he may be looking at a shop window and pass them unnoticed."), and ends with the cryptic "I have written my last story."
Maugham's the word!
* Since Volume 1 has 30 "short" stories, this similarly-sized second volume, with 61 "shorter" stories, would classify as flash fiction in today's parlance.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews