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Short Stories
Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection. In acclaimed stories such as 'Rain', 'The Letter', 'The Vessel of Wrath' and 'The Alien Corn', Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama and an acute sense of time and place.
624 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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143 people want to read
About the author
W. Somerset Maugham
2,115 books6,065 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 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 9, 2024
I’m so glad that a Bookstagram page mentioned this collection’s “The Letter”, enticing me to pick up this author again after my awareness of his more famous works, like The Painted Veil and The Moon and Sixpence. In this book of short stories, Maugham paints such a variety of intense characters. Some are white-saviour men who feel, through their work in tropical, far-flung colonies, to exhalt their noble souls and save apparently corrupt natives, whilst in reality they only show their ugliness and ignorance. In other stories are men who haven’t dared stray very far from their home comforts and who hold fast to their military pride and proper upbringing, thinking, foolishly, that they can do of the women in their lives what they will. It is the women, most refreshingly of all, who come out in this collection as steadfast, stealthy, and very often, able to do just what they like regardless of the men they are married to or tied with by blood. I did not expect to smirk, laugh and gasp as much as I did thanks to an author of a work of literature.
Before giving a list of my absolute, note-worthy favourites in this collection below, I feel I have to give a *Trigger Warning* as suicide features quite prominently in a lot of these short stories.
-The Book-Bag
-The Letter
-Mackintosh
-The Colonel’s Lady
-Salvatore
-The Alien Corn
-The Door of Opportunity
-The Round Dozen
Before giving a list of my absolute, note-worthy favourites in this collection below, I feel I have to give a *Trigger Warning* as suicide features quite prominently in a lot of these short stories.
-The Book-Bag
-The Letter
-Mackintosh
-The Colonel’s Lady
-Salvatore
-The Alien Corn
-The Door of Opportunity
-The Round Dozen
May 20, 2019
I don't think this is the version I have (publisher: Vintage, selected by Anthony Curtis) but whatever! Probably I should be a Maugham completist as I kind of love him and his insight into character. Does he criticize colonialism? Kind of! Is he interested in the stories of people of colour? Absolutely not. Oh well.
The Pacific - just lovely and melancholy.
Mackintosh - I kind of saw it coming except I didn't. Lots of death by throat slashing in this anthology. He did a lot with the "Scottish people are uptight and cerebral and Irish people are drunk and emotional" trope.
The Fall of Edward Barnard - published in 1921, I have to go check if came before The Razor's Edge as it struck me as similar. A lot of the fear of Going Native here, but the narrator isn't necessarily right about it.
Rain - I just saw this described as a tragedy elsewhere but in today's reading, it's more a feminist liberation. Maugham in none too kind to hypocritical, small minded, just-as-perverted-as-the-next-guy-but-less-honest missionaries and I'm here for it. Maugham never seems to go so far as to say colonialism is flawed but you can tell he's very aware of the abuses of power, small-mindedness etc etc.
Envoi - leis are like a metaphor for how transient life is, dude!
The Casuarina Tree - better as an intro to a book than a story but sure.
Before the Party - kinda saw this one coming. At one point, a loved one's alcoholism was treated with scorn and shame (which definitely helps addicts recover). Good times, good times.
P & O - Is the East so exotic and mystical that curses work, though the white people scoff? Is jealousy really a kind of curse? Why, yes and yes!
[Long break as I went to China and didn't bring this book.]
The Letter - I had to skim through this again because I'd forgotten all about it. More repressed English people bottling every emotion up until it ends in murder, who end up trapped in their own boring lives.
Mr Harrington's Washing - A stuffy American Puritan during the Boshevik revolution can't let his laundry go. What a metaphor!
Sanatorium - I liked the mood of this one. The ending gets a bit sentimental but I liked all the well-drawn characters, thrown together just because they have TB.
The Princess and the Nightingale - taking the bird in the cage metaphor for love to the extreme. You get the impression, reading these stories, that Maugham was underwhelmed by British rules of monogamy and jealousy.
The Round Dozen - This one was fun too. You can't even be mad at the charmer who serially marries rich spinsters. (Well, I guess you can.)
Jane - A rich spinster who made good! This is a really fun little story, and it's a bit sad that she finds someone else her own age by the end. The couple have a very nice chemistry and respect for each other. It felt, as the internetters say, wholesome.
The Alien Corn - an interesting look at how people thought about cultural assimilation and/or multiculturalism in the 1930s. Kind of sad to think about all the Jews who distanced themselves from their own culture, or internalized all those stereotypes. Then it morphs into a tragedy of someone who wants to be an artist but isn't skilled enough to pull it off.
The Door of Opportunity - I thought this one was interesting - I like the mild mystery about why the wife wants to leave. Though I probably wouldn't make her judgment call, it played out in an interesting way.
The Vessel of Wrath - Maybe my favourite of the collection, had an interesting setting and very interesting psychology, and I kind of love when Maugham's capable spinsters get what they want in the end. (Of course, wanting the reformed womanizing drunk is probably a terrible idea...)
The Book-Bag - I'm not sure what the book-bag metaphor means (except, of course, baggage) in the context of extreme sibling co-dependence (aka emotional incest) but man oh man, this must have been when it was published.
Salvatore - sweet. Just before I got to the end, it occurred to me there was no conflict, which turned out to be the point.
The Judgement Seat - Yet another, "why make yourselves miserable for duty" story. I hope someone mailed this anonymously to Charles and Diana, back in the day.
Gigolo and Gigolette - I guess the question is, what's the difference between entertainers who risk their lives in a show to rouse people's sense of excitement and fear, and people who provide sex? Either way, you're pretty trapped till the job kills you.
The Colonel's Lady - Another tragic English marriage. I do appreciate the dumb patriarchy finally getting his comeuppance. I mean, he's not a monster, but he's not a good and thoughtful person. (I suspect Maugham thought good and thoughtful people were rare.)
The Kite - There's an interesting connection between being lower class but attempting to rise (though you find a clerk job that pays nothing anyway) and kite flying with your overindulgent parents.
Daisy - An early story so an interesting one to end with. Certainly not kind to small-town hypocrites.
It's interesting to see Maugham's queerness (his words), especially in his description of handsome young men. I'm guessing he was pretty sympathetic to those left on the margins of British and colonial society at the time, especially spinsters and quiet, older married ladies.
The Pacific - just lovely and melancholy.
Mackintosh - I kind of saw it coming except I didn't. Lots of death by throat slashing in this anthology. He did a lot with the "Scottish people are uptight and cerebral and Irish people are drunk and emotional" trope.
The Fall of Edward Barnard - published in 1921, I have to go check if came before The Razor's Edge as it struck me as similar. A lot of the fear of Going Native here, but the narrator isn't necessarily right about it.
Rain - I just saw this described as a tragedy elsewhere but in today's reading, it's more a feminist liberation. Maugham in none too kind to hypocritical, small minded, just-as-perverted-as-the-next-guy-but-less-honest missionaries and I'm here for it. Maugham never seems to go so far as to say colonialism is flawed but you can tell he's very aware of the abuses of power, small-mindedness etc etc.
Envoi - leis are like a metaphor for how transient life is, dude!
The Casuarina Tree - better as an intro to a book than a story but sure.
Before the Party - kinda saw this one coming. At one point, a loved one's alcoholism was treated with scorn and shame (which definitely helps addicts recover). Good times, good times.
P & O - Is the East so exotic and mystical that curses work, though the white people scoff? Is jealousy really a kind of curse? Why, yes and yes!
[Long break as I went to China and didn't bring this book.]
The Letter - I had to skim through this again because I'd forgotten all about it. More repressed English people bottling every emotion up until it ends in murder, who end up trapped in their own boring lives.
Mr Harrington's Washing - A stuffy American Puritan during the Boshevik revolution can't let his laundry go. What a metaphor!
Sanatorium - I liked the mood of this one. The ending gets a bit sentimental but I liked all the well-drawn characters, thrown together just because they have TB.
The Princess and the Nightingale - taking the bird in the cage metaphor for love to the extreme. You get the impression, reading these stories, that Maugham was underwhelmed by British rules of monogamy and jealousy.
The Round Dozen - This one was fun too. You can't even be mad at the charmer who serially marries rich spinsters. (Well, I guess you can.)
Jane - A rich spinster who made good! This is a really fun little story, and it's a bit sad that she finds someone else her own age by the end. The couple have a very nice chemistry and respect for each other. It felt, as the internetters say, wholesome.
The Alien Corn - an interesting look at how people thought about cultural assimilation and/or multiculturalism in the 1930s. Kind of sad to think about all the Jews who distanced themselves from their own culture, or internalized all those stereotypes. Then it morphs into a tragedy of someone who wants to be an artist but isn't skilled enough to pull it off.
The Door of Opportunity - I thought this one was interesting - I like the mild mystery about why the wife wants to leave. Though I probably wouldn't make her judgment call, it played out in an interesting way.
The Vessel of Wrath - Maybe my favourite of the collection, had an interesting setting and very interesting psychology, and I kind of love when Maugham's capable spinsters get what they want in the end. (Of course, wanting the reformed womanizing drunk is probably a terrible idea...)
The Book-Bag - I'm not sure what the book-bag metaphor means (except, of course, baggage) in the context of extreme sibling co-dependence (aka emotional incest) but man oh man, this must have been when it was published.
Salvatore - sweet. Just before I got to the end, it occurred to me there was no conflict, which turned out to be the point.
The Judgement Seat - Yet another, "why make yourselves miserable for duty" story. I hope someone mailed this anonymously to Charles and Diana, back in the day.
Gigolo and Gigolette - I guess the question is, what's the difference between entertainers who risk their lives in a show to rouse people's sense of excitement and fear, and people who provide sex? Either way, you're pretty trapped till the job kills you.
The Colonel's Lady - Another tragic English marriage. I do appreciate the dumb patriarchy finally getting his comeuppance. I mean, he's not a monster, but he's not a good and thoughtful person. (I suspect Maugham thought good and thoughtful people were rare.)
The Kite - There's an interesting connection between being lower class but attempting to rise (though you find a clerk job that pays nothing anyway) and kite flying with your overindulgent parents.
Daisy - An early story so an interesting one to end with. Certainly not kind to small-town hypocrites.
It's interesting to see Maugham's queerness (his words), especially in his description of handsome young men. I'm guessing he was pretty sympathetic to those left on the margins of British and colonial society at the time, especially spinsters and quiet, older married ladies.
October 29, 2021
First published in 1990, 'Short Stories' is a selection of W Somerset Maugham stories originally published over the years 1899-1947. All have appeared in previous collections, and these are Anthony Curtis's selection. And a good selection it is, not a dud in sight, though a small number stand well above the rest. The tone varies, with humour, fantasy and macabre all supported by superb characterisations.
January 9, 2021
That is the core of this story, but a story that is otherwise not about them; the story itself is actually about a different couple, the eponymous couple, in a Casino on the French Riviera, many many years before Coronavirus hit the planet, she, to attract diners and gamblers, by diving from a great height into a shallow petrol-lit tank. Twice a night. Daredevil stunt. Tempting at least a broken back by this personal closing of the distance between her and death, in each of her sudden spurts downward. Yes, twice a night. She suddenly loses her nerve between the two dives. Threatening a return to the more lowly paid job, for the couple, of physically attritional marathon-dancing…
And that’s where we must leave this story, before it ends. Between one dive and the next.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long to post here.
Above is one of its observations.
September 13, 2021
W Somerset Maugham’s stories - a selection included in this volume - offer us a picture of an era long past, of a Britain that was still an empire (with all the quirkiness of cultural displacement and social unease covered up by prejudice and myths of colonial benevolence), of certain social mores and manners that repressed as much as expressed. Whether tales of Britain or Asia, or the spy world of his character Ashenden, Maugham is ever the observer. I cannot but wonder how many of these tales were based on things he saw or heard. At their best they drag the reader into these worlds and into the lives - of intrigue or domestic turmoil - of the characters. The book itself though quite long is itself a selection from a much larger corpus of Maugham’s shorter works.
September 21, 2025
"It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it".
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
-Somerseet Maugham
Read in Eastern Province, KSA (April 2025)
“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.”
-Somerseet Maugham
Read in Eastern Province, KSA (April 2025)
October 15, 2020
It was not this copy, it was a two-volume collection called A Baker's Dozen but I can't seem to find it here. No matter.
Some of them stay with you, that's the best part. Rain? SHIVER. Every time.
Some of them stay with you, that's the best part. Rain? SHIVER. Every time.
December 29, 2023
阿毛的《人性枷鎖》是我的all time no.1，伴隨我度過初戀失戀的時光。他真的是說故事聖手，如果做編劇的話應該超強，因為很多人物與場景描繪都栩栩如生。十二篇短篇故事集說長不長、說短不短，很快就讀完了，沒有什麼省思，但就是好看的故事。
April 20, 2024
It's always a treat to read of times when morals and etiquette and human foibles are so important.
March 17, 2025
⟨雨⟩有好多電影版本。
October 29, 2025
個人偏好作者意圖不那麼外顯的作品，所以比起諷刺或說教意味過濃的短篇，我更喜歡他的長篇。
但《雨》非常優秀，為了這篇打了四星。
但《雨》非常優秀，為了這篇打了四星。
January 1, 2021
An excellent collection of short stories from one of my favorite authors. He may have said that he is "in the very first row of the second-rate writers" but his sense of pacing, place, and character is one of the best in literature. This collection brings together some of his best stories, many influenced by his travels. A good, general introduction to his fiction.
August 27, 2011
An amazing read, this book is one of those which, when you have finished reading, make you want to flip the book over and begin all over again.
Mr. Maugham, you've got yourself a new fan!
Mr. Maugham, you've got yourself a new fan!
June 23, 2012
A collection of memorable short stories from a master including possibly my favourite short story of all time - The Vessel of Wrath
May 8, 2013
I love some story, but some was just ok...
June 24, 2017
I savoured every morsel of these short stories. Such an era, such a writer! I'll have tiffin followed by a gin pahit preferably in Singapore but Claridge's will do.
December 29, 2020
Phenomenal. Each story vastly different from the other, yet his style of writing remains flawless throughout.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews