"The sea was very calm. There was no ship in sight, and the seagulls were motionless upon its even greyness. The sky was dark with lowering clouds, but there was no wind. The line of the horizon was clear and delicate. The shingly beach, no less deserted, was thick with tangled seaweed, and the innumerable shells crumbed under the feet that trod them. The breakwaters, which sought to prevent the...

Liza of Lambeth (1897) was W. Somerset Maugham's first novel, which he wrote while working as a doctor at a hospital in Lambeth, then a working class district of London. It depicts the short life and death of Liza Kemp, an 18-year-old factory worker who lives together with her ageing mother in the fictional Vere Street off Westminster Bridge Road (real) in Lambeth. All in all, it gives the...

The Circle - The First Act: The Scene is a stately drawing-room at Aston-Adey, with fine pictures on the walls and Georgian furniture. Aston-Adey has been described, with many illustrations, in Country Life. It is not a house, but a place. Its owner takes a great pride in it, and there is nothing in the room which is not of the period. Through the French windows at the back can be seen the...

The Merry-Go-Round, an early and largely forgotten novel from W. Somerset Maugham is not considered his best, but it’s one of my favourites. The Merry-Go-Round was written in 1904 following Mrs Craddock (another great favourite) in 1902. The main character in Mrs Craddock is Bertha Ley, and she’s the niece of Miss Mary Ley, the main character in The Merry-Go-Round. Set in Edwardian...

Mrs Craddock is a novel by William Somerset Maugham first published in 1902. Set in the final years of the 19th century, Mrs Craddock is about a young and attractive woman of independent means who marries beneath her. As he had written about a subject that was considered daring at the time, Maugham had some difficulty finding a publisher. Completed in 1900, the novel was eventually published in...

The Magician is a novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham, originally published in 1908. In this tale, the magician Oliver Haddo, a caricature of Aleister Crowley, attempts to create life. Crowley wrote a critique of this book under the pen name Oliver Haddo, where he accused Maugham of plagiarism. Maugham wrote The Magician in London, after he had spent some time living in Paris, where he...

Of Human Bondage (1915) is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. It is generally agreed to be his masterpiece and to be strongly autobiographical in nature, although Maugham stated, "This is a novel, not an autobiography, though much in it is autobiographical, more is pure invention." Maugham, who had originally planned to call his novel Beauty from Ashes, finally settled on a title taken from a...

Carmen is a novella by Prosper Mérimée, written and first published in 1845. It has been adapted into a number of dramatic works, including the famous opera by Georges Bizet. The novella comprises four parts. Only the first three appeared in the original publication in the October 1, 1845 issue of the Revue des Deux Mondes (Robinson 1992); the fourth first appeared in the book...

The Story of the Gadsbys is a story by Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published as no. 2 of the Indian Railway Library in 1888. The Story of the Gadsbys is written in dramatic form, consisting of eight short scenes (listed below). This short pamphlet, of 100 pages, was later collected in book form as the second part of Soldiers Three. "Poor Dear Mamma" "The World Without" "The Tents of...

A Song of the English was collected in The Seven Seas, published simultaneously in London and the USA on 30 October 1896: London, Methuen & Co. New York, D. Appleton & Co.(In 1892/3, Kipling had instructed Appleton & Co to use English spelling for any of his work that they published.) A separate edition of the poem, including the six subsidiary poems, was published by Hodder and...

Under the Deodars (published 1888) is a collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Table of Contents: The Education of Otis Yeere At the Pit's Mouth A Wayside Comedy The Hill of Illusion A Second-rate Woman Only a Subaltern In the Matter of a Private The Enlightenments of Pagett, M. P. External links

The Eyes of Asia published in the U.S.A. in 1918, contains four letters purporting to be written to relations or friends at home in India by soldiers of the Indian Army (part of the normal British Forces in that country down to 1947) at the time of World War I, 1914-18. They were on active service in Europe and Africa, 1915-18. The articles forming The Eyes of Asia appeared in the American...

In an issue of the London World in April, 1890, there appeared the following paragraph: "Two small rooms connected by a tiny hall afford sufficient space to contain Mr. Rudyard Kipling, the literary hero of the present hour, 'the man who came from nowhere,' as he says himself, and who a year ago was consciously nothing in the literary world." Six months previous to this Mr. Kipling, then but...

Sea Warfare first appeared as a single publication in 1916 (Macmillan, London). The page and line numbers in these notes refer to that volume. However, its three component parts had appeared previously, both in Great Britain and the USA – the USA publications being primarily for copyright purposes. Sea Warfare was a compilation of a series of thirteen newspaper articles. Six were published...

A Diversity of Creatures by Rudyard Kipling. Table of Contents As Easy as A.B.C. MacDonough’s Song Friendly Brook The Land In the Same Boat ‘Helen all Alone’ The Honours of War The Children The Dog Hervey The Comforters The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat The Press In The Presence Jobson’s Amen Regulus A Translation The Edge of the...

The Bridge-Builders (1893) by the British writer Rudyard Kipling is an Indian story about the building of the "Kashi Bridge." The story mainly displays Kipling's mastery of the technical details and knowledge related to bridge building. His biographers agree that the author acquired this knowledge through interacting with British civil engineers who were assigned by the Crown to build numerous...

Actions and Reactions by Rudyard Kipling Table of Contents: An Habitation Enforced The Recall Garm — A Hostage The Power of the Dog The Mother Hive The Bees and the Flies With the Night Mail The Four Angels A Deal in Cotton The New Knighthood The Puzzler The Puzzler Little Foxes Gallio’s Song The House Surgeon The Rabbi’s Song

Life's Handicap, Being Stories of Mine Own People was published in 1891. Most of the stories had previously appeared in periodicals. Table of Contents: Preface The Lang Men o' Larut Reingelder and the German Flag The Wandering Jew Through the Fire The Finances of the Gods The Amir's Homily Jews in Shushan The Limitations of Pambe Serang Little Tobrah Bubbling Well Road "The City of...

Rewards and Fairies is a historical fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling published in 1910. The title comes from the poem "Farewell, Rewards and Fairies" by Richard Corbet. The poem is referred to by the children in the first story of the preceding book Puck of Pook's Hill. Rewards and Fairies is set one year later chronologically although published four years afterwards. The book consists of a...

Puck of Pook's Hill is a fantasy book by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1906, containing a series of short stories set in different periods of English history. It can count both as historical fantasy – since some of the stories told of the past have clear magical elements, and as contemporary fantasy – since it depicts a magical being active and practising his magic in the England of...