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Far and Wide. Nine Novels (The Companion Book Club) - W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >Far and Wide, 2 vols. 1955
Far and Wide. Nine Novels by W. Somerset Maugham Selected by the Author. 2 vols. London: The Companion Book Club, 1955. Besides first editions, from time to time I get drawn to some copies that may have nothing special "bibliographically," but just that they are pleasing to the eye. It is an aesthetic pleasure that is hard to explain.Such is what I felt when I lay eyes on these two volumes: Far and Wide published by The Companion Book Club…
W. Somerset Maugham, Eighteenth-Century Writer?
This will be my last post about misinformation. I may consider putting them all on one page. It would be interesting to see who long it will get.W. Somerset Maugham, one of the great British writers of the late 18th century, wrote a fictionalized memoir called “The Razor’s Edge,” which in a somewhat roundabout way documents the life of Larry, a wealthy boy in search of meaning. At one point, Maugham the character is speaking with Larry’s soon-to-be jilted widow, and she is trying to recall a …
Maugham Sounds Like Kerouac?
I know, I know, it seems that I am changing the direction of the blog. Instead of talking about first editions and books I am chattering about this and that; but since Maugham can't answer, perhaps we who think he deserves better should. After all, it's not an opinion, but chronological error. It is thus I console myself that I am not really a busybody....The English professor Gary Carlson said in the news:
"I thought, gosh, this sounds like Kerouac," Carlson said of the nov…
Maugham's Cocktail - Even Gods of Olympus Would Fall!
This post is going to have an unusual bend. As the title suggests, it's about a cocktail; one that Maugham mentions in The Razor's Edge. No name is given, and from my un-whole-heartedly-search (meaning not thoroughly unto the third or fourth pages of Google search results), no reference has been rendered.The Razor's Edge (1944) And Booze
Interestingly, alcohol plays quite an important role in this story of Larry Darrell, an American (supposedly materialist) turned mystic, when the…
Historical and Cultural References in W. Somerset Maugham's Work
This post will look at the cultural and historical references Maugham mentions in some of his novels. The focus will be on the ones that Maugham is overlooked and/or not cited as examples when their usages are explained.As readers of Maugham would have noticed, one of Maugham's techniques in achieving conciseness, directness, and simplicity is the rich cultural and historical references that he uses in his books, according to the periods and places that he is situating the course of eve…