Cakes and Ale and Twelve Short Stories

by W. Somerset Maugham

1930. Maugham, English novelist, short-story writer, and playwright is best remembered for his novel Of Human Bondage. Cakes and Ale is a comedy of literary England in the early decades of the 20th century narrated by Ashenden. Many consider this to be Maugham's wittiest novel. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1930

About the author

William 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.

Reviews

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interlibrary loan courtesy of the Seattle Public Library.

My only experience (previously) with this author was the film version of The Painted Veil (which I loved).

I loved this collection of stories. The one I loved best, and the most moving for me, was The Force of Circumstance .

Also included in this volume is the novella Cakes and Ale, the reason I requested this book. (The 12 short stories were a bonus!) Cakes and Ale reads like a British costume drama production. (In fact, most of his stories could and were dramatized.) Not as absorbing as some of the 12 short stories, it was still very enjoyable.

Mr. Maugham has a wonderful style. It is sparse and dry, but full of wit and heavy with emotional turmoil, boiling just below surface. This is also a class drama and analysis of the world of writers.

I am definitely going to try to get a collection of his short stories.

[ADD · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful series of stories, all of which have vibrant and interesting characters. I enjoyed the novel Cakes and Ale and short stories The Three Fat Women of Antibes, Before the Party, Rain, Virtue and A Man with a Conscience the most. A lot of social commentary that I agreed with throughout.