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Nick Petrie Series

W. Somerset Maugham Books In Order

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Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Liza of Lambeth (1897)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Making Of A Saint (1898)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Hero (1901)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Mrs Craddock (1902)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Merry-Go-Round (1904)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Bishop's Apron (1906)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Explorer (1907)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Magician (1908)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Of Human Bondage (1915)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Painted Veil (1925)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Ashenden (1927)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Cakes and Ale (1930)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Narrow Corner (1932)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Theatre (1937)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Christmas Holiday (1939)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Up at the Villa (1941)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Hour Before the Dawn (1942)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Razor's Edge (1944)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Then and Now (1946)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Catalina (1948)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Rain (1921)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Plays

A Man of Honour (1903)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Mrs. Dot (1912)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Jack Straw (1912)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Penelope (1912)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Lady Frederick (1912)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Tenth Man (1913)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Smith (1913)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Landed Gentry (1913)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Land of Promise (1914)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Unattainable (1916)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Unknown (1920)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Circle (1921)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
East of Suez (1922)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Caesar's Wife (1922)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Home And Beauty (1923)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Our Betters (1923)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Loaves and Fishes (1924)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Letter (1927)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Constant Wife (1927)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Sacred Flame (1928)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Breadwinner (1930)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
For Services Rendered (1932)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Sheppey (1933)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Noble Spaniard (1948)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

The Land of the Blessed Virgin (1905)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
On A Chinese Screen (1922)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Gentleman in the Parlour (1930)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Don Fernando (1935)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
My South Sea Island (1936)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Summing Up (1938)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Books and You (1940)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
France at War (1940)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Strictly Personal (1941)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Ten Novels and Their Authors (1948)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
A Writer's Notebook (1949)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Writer's Point of View (1951)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Vagrant Mood (1952)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Partial View (1954)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Travel Books (1955)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Points of View (1958)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Collections

Orientations (1899)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Trembling of a Leaf (1921)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Casuarina Tree (1926)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular (1931)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Book Bag (1932)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Ah King (1933)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Judgement Seat (1934)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Cosmopolitans (1936)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Princess September and the Nightingale (1939)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Mixture As Before (1940)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Creatures Of Circumstance (1947)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Quartet: Stories (1948)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Here and There (1948)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Complete Short Stories Volume 2 (1950)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Trio: Stories (1950)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Complete Short Stories: Volume 3 (1951)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Encore: Stories (1951)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Collected Short Stories (1963)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Collected Stories (2004)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Skeptical Romancer (2009)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Collected Short Stories of/Novellas

Collected Short Stories: Volume 1 (1951)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Collected Short Stories: Volume 2 (1951)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Collected Short Stories: Volume 3 (1951)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Collected Short Stories: Volume 4 (1951)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Anthologies

My Favorite Story(1928)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Great First World War Stories(1930)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
50 Great Short Stories(1952)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Short Story Masterpieces: 35 Classic American and British Stories from the First Half of the 20th Century(1954)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine July 1958(1958)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Third Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories(1967)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Thirteenth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories(1976)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Amis Story Anthology(1992)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
The Mammoth Book of Short Spy Novels(1996)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Escape to Mexico: An Anthology of Great Writers(2002)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
A Tangled Web(2005)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Empire Tales(2008)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Stories to Get You Through the Night(2010)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle
Flash Fiction International(2015)Hardcover  Paperback  Kindle

For much of his 90 years on Earth, Somerset Maugham was one of the most admired authors on the globe. In almost every English speaking country, his novels and short stories had immense acclaim.

“Of Human Bondage” which is one of the best works he ever published would go on to become one of the twentieth century’s most widely read works of fiction. His novels would later on be translated into dozens of languages, as it was dramatized and millions of copies would be sold.

His notoriety would bring him enormous wealth and celebrity, and he would often be pursued by journalists whenever he went. It does seem that at some point he was known to and was friends with everyone from DH Lawrence to Henry James from Dorthy Parker to Winston Churchill.

Maugham was born to a British father then living in Paris, as he was legal advisor to the British embassy. As such, Maugham grew up in France as a child and spoke French as his first language before he learned English in his youth.

Upon the death of his parents, he was sent to England where he attended King’s School, Canterbury. However, it was not a great time in England as his pronounced stammer and delicate health made him a target for bullies and even teachers.

He would then go to Heidelberg University and after graduation, he proceeded to St. Thomas’s Hospital London to become a medical student.
It was at this time that he experienced slum life while working at the hospital. His experiences would be the inspiration for the 1897 published “Liza of Lambeth,” his debut.

Following his graduation as a doctor, he quit medicine as he intended to pursue a career as an author.

W Somerset Maugham would go on to write several distinguished works. He would become one of England’s most popular playwrights when he published the phenomenally successful “Lady Frederick.”

Maugham would also become a notable writer of social comedies during the 1920s, even though he had written what was arguably his greatest work in “Of Human Bondage” in 1915.

During the First World War, he worked in Russia and France for British intelligence. Between 1919 and 1930, he wrote more than half a dozen novels and many short stories that would be in collections such as the 1926 published “The Casuarina Tree.”

In 1940, W Somerset Maugham was forced to flee France as the Nazis invaded. He moved to the United States where he led a very quiet life and went back after the war in 1944. “The Razor’s Edge,” which would be his last important work, was published in 1944.

“Of Human Bondage” by W. Somerset Maugham is the story of Philip, the son of a very successful surgeon who dies of blood poisoning in 1885. The doctor leaves behind his son Philip and a pregnant wife in fragile health.

Mrs. Carew is not very good at managing money and things get even tougher when she dies giving birth to a stillborn baby. Philip is taken in by the vicar of Blackstable, his paternal uncle William of London.
Louisa and William are a childless couple that give their all to parenting Philip. Still the vicar is an obtuse and thrifty man who suffers the lack of affection from her husband but loves Philip like he was her own.

The child is brought up in the vicarage and lives the very same life that his uncle and aunt had lived for years before he joined them.

Growing up he does not have many peers and he becomes a lonely and solitary youth. He is not allowed to play any games on Sunday and has to complete tough memorization assignments from a prayer book.

But when he is given an illustrated book, his lifelong passion for literature begins.

W Somerset Maugham’s novel “The Razor’s Edge” opens to Elliot visiting his sister in Chicago. He takes the liberty to invite Maugham to a luncheon on Lake Shore Drive, where he gets the opportunity to meet the radiant and tall Isabel, who makes quite an impression on him.

He also meets Laurence Darell, a shy and pleasant looking youth who is Isabel’s boyfriend. He seems to have the knack of being an effortless contributor in conversations, even as he hardly says a word.

It later comes out that the man is recently returned to the US, after serving as an aviator in the war. To the mounting bewilderment of Isabel’s uncle and mother, the young man has turned down numerous offers for work.

After he accepts a dinner invitation from his sister, he finds himself seated next to a plain looking girl in her late teens that is surprisingly intelligent and shrewd. Maugham manages to make Sophie Macdonald open up despite her shyness.

She introduces Maugham to the heir of a millionaire investment banker named Gray Maturi. Just like Larry he is an assuming man even if he is just as strong and virile

But everyone knows that he is enamored with Isabel even though he does not stand a chance and has not made any advances since Larry is also in the picture.

“The Painted Veil” by W Somerset Maugham is a short masterpiece that explores betrayal, love and search for real meaning in life. The lead in the story is a middle class Briton named Kitty, whose best bet for a future is to marry well.

However, none of the suitors are up to the mark and when her younger sister gets a man before she does, she decides to hitch her horse to Walter. He loves her dearly but she thinks the biologist who makes his home in Hong Kong could not be more boring.

One notable hero is the head of a nunnery who leads her group to care for the poor and sick in her community. The Mother Superior had spent her childhood and youth living with a rich family in France, but has now found her purpose in serving the community.

Meanwhile, Walter the shy biologist risks limb and life trying to tem a cholera epidemic in the hinterlands of China. Maugham provides musings on religion but still manages to be not too preachy.

It is a joy to watch and read as Kitty comes of age and learns from her experiences and the many people she meets.

Book Series In Order » Authors » W. Somerset Maugham

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