Maugham wrote these stories between 19, after he had begun his extensive travels throughout the South Pacific and Asia, following the spirit (and to some extent the route) of Robert Louis Stevenson, another literary adventurer. Maugham’s most famous story is “Rain,” which is often encountered in high school English classes, a tale of a fatal encounter between a self-righteous missionary and a gutsy prostitute in the South Seas that was made into a Hollywood movie. More and more taken with Maugham’s writing - I took the bedside lamp off the two-volume set of short stories, and discovered what my wife had found: a treasure. (Sorry, Somerset, but literature isn’t always used as the author intends!) Then one day traveling in Egypt, I read “The Moon and Sixpence,” a fictionalized account of Gaughin’s escape to Tahiti this was so good, I dove into “Of Human Bondage,” and finally. Quite high enough without the elevation of Maugham’s prose. Because of their sheer heft, we used them for several years to prop up a bedside lamp that wasn’t
Like many other deals found at yard sales, the books sat unread for quite some time.
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