The Moon and Sixpence follows the life of one Charles Strickland, a bourgeois city gent whose dull exterior conceals the soul of a genius. Compulsive and impassioned, he abandons his home, wife, and children to devote himself slavishly to painting. In a tiny studio in Paris, he fills canvas after canvas, refusing to sell or even exhibit his work. Beset by poverty, sickness, and his own intransigent, unscrupulous nature, he drifts to Tahiti, where, even after being blinded by leprosy, he produces some of his most extraordinary works of art. Inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, The Moon and Sixpence is an unforgettable study of a man possessed by the need to create--regardless of the cost to himself and to others.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Born with a clubfoot, Philip is orphaned as a child and raised by unsympathetic relatives. Sent to a boarding school where he has difficulty fitting in, he grows up with an intense longing for love, art, and experience. After failing to become an artist in Paris, he begins medical studies in London, where he meets Mildred, a cold-hearted waitress with whom he falls into a powerful, tortured, life-altering love affair. The most autobiographical of Maugham's works, Of Human Bondage is a brilliant and deeply moving portrayal of the price of passion and the universal desire for connection.

It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham, wrote Gore Vidal. He was always so entirely there.

Originally published in 1915, Of Human Bondage is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic bildungsroman tells the story of Philip Carey, a sensitive boy born with a clubfoot who is orphaned and raised by a religious aunt and uncle. Philip yearns for adventure, and at eighteen leaves home, eventually pursuing a career as an artist in Paris. When he returns to London to study medicine, he meets the androgynous but alluring Mildred and begins a doomed love affair that will change the course of his life. There is no more powerful story of sexual infatuation, of human longing for connection and freedom.

Here is a novel of the utmost importance, wrote Theodore Dreiser on publication. It is a beacon of light by which the wanderer may be guided. . . . One feels as though one were sitting before a splendid Shiraz of priceless texture and intricate weave, admiring, feeling, responding sensually to its colors and tones.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

First serialized in 1924 and published as a complete novel in 1925, The Painted Veil is the powerful novel of transgression and redemption by popular and prolific British author W. Somerset Maugham. The Painted Veil tells the story of the lovely and superficial Kitty Garstin and her unhappy marriage to Walter Fane, a quiet and honorable man. Kitty agrees to marry Walter not because she loves him, but because she fears being upstaged by her younger sister. Kitty travels to Tching-Yen with her new husband, where he is posted as a government scientist, and Kitty soon falls in love with her husband's colleague, the handsome and charming Charlie Townsend. Walter is not as clueless about her behavior as Kitty would like to believe, and eventually rejected by her selfish lover, he has her travel with him to mainland China to help during a dangerous cholera epidemic. The experience utterly transforms Kitty and she begins to take responsibility for her mistakes and understand her shortcomings. Beautiful and deeply affecting, The Painted Veil is a thought-provoking study of the ability of people to change, grow, and learn how to love deeply. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

Marked by countless similarities to Maugham's own life, his masterpiece is not an autobiography, as the author himself once contended, but an autobiographical novel; fact and fiction are inexorably mingled; the emotions are my own. And although he based Of Human Bondage on what he knew, his is an excessively rare gift of storytelling...almost the equal of imagination itself.*

With an Introduction by Benjamin De Mott and an Afterword by Maeve Binchy

*The Sunday Times (London)

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham's novels. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor. And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.

It seems that noting can ruffle her satin feathers, until a quiet stranger who challenges Julia's very sense of self. As a result, she will endure rejection for the first time, her capacity as a mother will be affronted, and her ability to put on whatever face she desired for her public will prove limited. In Theatre, Maugham subtly exposes the tensions and triumphs that occur when acting and reality blend together, and-for Julia-ultimately reverse.

From London to Hong Kong, from Paris to Pago Pago, in Samoa or Malaya or on a Tahitian tropical isle, the men and women in this collection of masterfully crafted tales inhabit exotic, mysterious worlds--and at their own peril invade the dark territory of the human heart.

Somerset Maugham, a noted English novelist, playwright, and author of masterly short stories, spent several months in the Pacific in 1916 and 1917 during an interlude in his service in British intelligence during World War I. Several of his works have been made into movies and plays, including Razor's Edge, Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale, Rain, and The Moon and Sixpence.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction--novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

For Lydia has seen tragedy. The Russian Revolution displaced her family, left her homeless, fatherless. And for reasons that elude Charley, Lydia pines for a man half a world away--a dope dealer and murderer whose sins Lydia seeks to absolve through her own self- destruction. Haunting, erotic, deeply effecting, Christmas Holiday explores two souls capsized by compassion--and the confusion that engulfed a generation in the days between the Great Wars.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Painted Veil is a beautifully written affirmation of the human capacity to grow, to change, and to forgive.

The incidents described in the stories are modeled on Maugham's experiences as a secret agent, and the central character, Ashenden, is very much an autobiographical character. He is supposed to have modeled Chandra Lal after Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, an Indian nationalist in Germany during the war. Maugham, who was in the British Secret Service in Europe during the war, based many of his stories on his own experiences. Among other enterprises, Britain's European intelligence network attempted to eliminate several Indian nationalists in Europe, notably members of the Berlin Committee. Donald Gullick, a British agent, was dispatched to assassinate Chattopadhyaya. At the same time, the latter was on his way to Geneva to meet another Indian nationalist, Mahendra Pratap, and forward the Kaiser's invitation to Berlin. The short story of Giulia Lazzari is a blend of Gullick's attempts to assassinate Chattopadhyaya and Mata Hari's story. Winston Churchill reportedly advised Maugham to burn 14 other stories.

The 1936 Alfred Hitchcock-directed film Secret Agent is a loose adaptation of The Traitor and The Hairless Mexican, with John Gielgud as Ashenden (whose real name is Edgar Brodie) and Peter Lorre as The General.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.