COLLECTED STORIES

W. Somerset Maugham

ISBN 10: 185715276X / ISBN 13: 9781857152760

Edité par Everyman's Library [Alfred A. Knopf], London, 2004

A propos de cet article

Everyman's Library edition. With a new and detailed introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare, chronology and select bibliography. ***Near fine in crimson-red cloth-covered boards, with gilt titles to black gilt-edged block to spine. Everyman logo to front and rear free endpapers. Integral silk reading ribbon. A few unobtrusive creases to tips of bottom-corners to last few pages, and a tiny dent to the fore-edge of text-block. Boards bright and clean. Pages clean. No inscriptions. Spine tight. ***In a near fine colour-illustrated dustwrapper that has not been price-clipped, showing original publisher's price of £14.99 net. No tears. No fading. Dustwrapper crisp and bright. 224mm x 140mm. xliii prelim-pages plus 839 pages. ***'Open this volume at any page and you will see immediately why Somerset Maugham is regarded as a master of the short story. His unerring eye for the essence of character and situation, his economy of means, his purity of language, his sense of colour and comedy, his ability to express the universal through the local, are all at work in these tales ---- timeless in their appeal.' ***'Maugham has given infinite pleasure and left us a splendour of writing which will remain for as long as the written English word is permitted to exist.' [Daily Telegraph] (Quote and review quote from inside front and rear of dustwrapper blurb respectively). ***Everyman's Library edition of W. Somerset Maugham's Collected Stories, complete in its dustwrapper, with a detailed new introduction by Nicholas Shakespeare, and a select bibliography and chronology to the fore. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: COLLECTED STORIES
• Éditeur: Everyman's Library [Alfred A. Knopf], London
• Date de parution: 2004
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 185715276X
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781857152760
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 5th or later Edition
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• État de la jaquette: Near Fine
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Literature

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Though W. Somerset Maugham was also famous for his novels and plays, it has been argued that in thethe short story he reached the pinnacle of his artwas his true métier. These expertly told tales, with their addictive plot twists and vividly drawn characters, are both galvanizing as literature and wonderfully entertaining. In the adventures of his alter ego Ashenden, a writer who (like Maugham himself) turned secret agent in World War I, as well as in stories set in such far-flung locales as South Pacific islands and colonial outposts in Southeast Asia, Maugham brings his characters vividly to life, and their humanity is more convincing for the author's merciless exposure of their flaws and failures. Whether the chasms of misunderstanding he plumbs are those between colonizers and natives, between a missionary and a prostitute, or between a poetry-writing woman and her uncomprehending husband, Maugham brilliantly displays his irony, his wit, and his genius in the art of storytelling.

À propos de l?auteur

William Somerset Maugham, famous as novelist, playwright and short-story writer, was born in 1874, and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with a view to practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to letters. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. His position as a successful playwright was being consolidated at the same time. His first play, A Man of Honour, was followed by a series of successes just before and after World War I, and his career in the theatre did not end until 1933 with Sheppey.

His fame as a short story writer began with The Trembling of a Leaf, subtitled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, in 1921, after which he published more than ten collections. His other works include travel books such as On a Chinese Screen, and Don Fernando, essays, criticism, and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook.

In 1927, he settled in the south of France, and lived there until his death in 1965.