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Title: Collected Short Stories (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 0-14-018589-5 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1977 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Unforeseen Twists of Fate
Comment: As a master of the short story, W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was the highest paid author in the 1930's. He was born in the British Embassy in Paris, on January 25, 1874.
He wrote with a sense of irony and wit. Often, he would express a cynical attitude towards life and his love of traveling found its way into his writing. He didn't confine himself to one genre, but also wrote novels, essays and plays.
His purpose was to entertain his readers, although you do learn the subtleties of human nature from many of his stories. His keen eye for the minute details of life is combined with his writing style in such away as to capture and keep your attention. It is said that due to becoming an orphan at the age of 10, he was shy and tended to be more of a passive observer rather than an active participant. This explains some of the detachment that you feel in various stories.
"I have never pretended to be anything but a story teller. It has amused me to tell stories and I have told a great many. It is a misfortune for me that the telling of a story just for the sake of the story is not an activity that is in favor with the intelligentsia. In endeavor to bear my misfortunes with fortitude." (from Creatures of Circumstance, 1947)
In this collection you will find stories that are filled with tales of the South Seas, Europe and America. They are concise and persuasive and evoke a time and place where you completely are absorbed into a story that often has a nice unforeseen twist right at the end. Either you are surprised, laughing, sad life took a certain turn, or very amused.
My Favorite Stories in this Collection :
The Vessel of Wrath: A tale of love between a missionary and a drunken reprobate that has a most surprising ending. It deals with how humans draw foregone conclusions and how people can change for the better.
The Force of Circumstance: Story of almost unavoidable circumstances and deals with the emotions a woman feels when she finds out her husband has had children with a native woman in the village and seems to have neglected to inform her.
The Colonel's Lady: A wife publishes her poetry without her husband's knowledge. He can't understand her or why everyone loves her writing. The reader might not understand him, but might understand his wife's need to express her creativity in her own way as obviously, he is not aware of that part of her life.
The Round Dozen: Amusing and almost unavoidable ending.
These are stories you can read when you have an hour here or there to read a few stories at a time. Some are short enough to be read in 15 minutes or less and are only a few pages long. I enjoyed the slightly longer ones as the character development intensifies and Maugham's powers of observation have time to play out to the full extent.
An escape to another time and place.
Rating: 5
Summary: Short Story Classic
Comment: Maugham's style is perfectly suited for short story writing. His facility of communicating all kinds of ideas is truly amazing. Thus his stories feel like a light read, but they also often give you pause--Maugham is trying to pry deep into what makes people think and act the way they do. He wrote his stories a century ago, and the mark of the time lies firmly upon some of them. It is clear that he was influenced by psychological insgihts and ideas that have penetrated intellectual circles of his time. Read these stories for their ease of communication, ideas about human nature, and vivid images, such as those of the South Pacific and the industrial landscape of the rising American giant.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Writer's Writer
Comment: I've only just discovered the wonders of W. Somerset Maugham. This was the first of his works that I have ever read, and it was an absolute pleasure. There are other reviewers on these pages who are more knowledgeable and better critics than I, so I am just going to tell you how much I enjoyed this particular compilation. Every story was a treasure. Every single character was so well drawn, that for the first time in a long time I found myself empathising with these people, loving them, hating them, lamenting for them and genuinely caring about what happened to them.
Every story started off in a fairly prosaic, nondescript fashion. But every story had me hooked by at least the first page. Sometimes they unfolded as funny stories, other were tales about how an individual's world had changed catastrophically. I never got bored, and the writing was never predictable, Maugham always had a surprisingly poetical observation to make that would send me into raptures. This is truly a writer of sensitivity and talent. I can honestly say that I have been searching for a writer of this calibre for a long time. If you care anything at all about the amazing stories that ordinary, little people have, then read this book and Maugham's other works. He truly is a master.
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Title: Collected Short Stories, Volume 3 (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 0140185917 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Great Exotic Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 0786708131 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers Pub. Date: 30 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Of Human Bondage (Bantam Classic) by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 055321392X Publisher: Bantam Classics Pub. Date: 01 June, 1991 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: The Razor's Edge by W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM ISBN: 1400034205 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Moon and Sixpence (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by W. Somerset Maugham ISBN: 0140185976 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 1977 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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