W. Somerset Maugham was once the highest-paid author in the world. He was a physician, a playwright, and a literal spy. But if you walk into a bookstore today, he’s often tucked away in the "Classics" section between Herman Melville and Toni Morrison, looking a bit dusty.
That's a mistake.
Honestly, Maugham's writing isn't for the ivory tower. It’s for the beach. It’s for the train. It’s for anyone who has ever felt like a total mess while trying to look like they have their life together. He didn't write flowery prose. He wrote about people being terrible to each other. He wrote about sex, greed, and the weird things we do for love. He was the original "no-nonsense" storyteller.
What Most People Get Wrong About Maugham
People call him a "cynic." That's the big label. They think w somerset maugham books are just cold-hearted observations of human failure.
But that's not quite right.
Maugham wasn't cynical; he was just observant. Having worked as a doctor in the slums of London—which inspired his first novel Liza of Lambeth (1897)—he saw people at their absolute worst and most vulnerable. You can't really sugarcoat a cholera outbreak or a back-alley heartbreak after you've seen the real thing. He carried that clinical eye into his fiction. He treats his characters like patients. He diagnoses their flaws, but he doesn't necessarily hate them for being sick.
The Big Three: Where to Actually Start
If you're diving into his work, don't just grab a random title. Some of his stuff is, frankly, a bit dated. But his heavy hitters? They still pack a punch.
Of Human Bondage (1915)
This is the big one. It’s long. It’s semi-autobiographical. It follows Philip Carey, a young man with a club foot who falls into a toxic, soul-crushing obsession with a waitress named Mildred.
Mildred is awful.
Philip knows she’s awful.
He still can't stop.
It’s one of the most honest depictions of "limerence" ever written. If you’ve ever stayed in a relationship that you knew was destroying you, this book will feel like a personal attack.
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The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
Loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin, this novel asks a brutal question: Is great art worth the cost of being a total monster? Charles Strickland is a boring London stockbroker who suddenly ditches his wife and kids to go paint in Tahiti. He doesn't care about the people he hurts. He only cares about the canvas. Maugham doesn't give you an easy answer. He just shows you the wreckage.
The Razor’s Edge (1944)
This is probably the most "modern" feeling of the bunch. It’s about Larry Darrell, a WWI pilot who comes home and realizes he doesn't want the 9-to-5 life. He goes to India. He seeks enlightenment. He’s basically the first "hippie" in English literature. While everyone else is chasing money and status, Larry is just trying to figure out why we’re all here. It’s a great read if you’re currently having a mid-life (or quarter-life) crisis.
The Spy Who Wrote Him
Maugham wasn't just sitting in a villa in the South of France. During WWI, he worked for British Intelligence. He was sent to Russia to try and prevent the Bolshevik Revolution. He failed at that, obviously, but he got a great book out of it: Ashenden: Or the British Agent.
Ian Fleming, the guy who created James Bond, basically worshipped this book. Unlike Bond, Ashenden is quiet. He waits. He watches. He deals with bureaucracy. It’s arguably the first realistic spy novel. No gadgets. Just gray men in gray rooms making impossible choices.
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Why He’s Everywhere (Even if You Don’t Know It)
Maugham has more film adaptations than almost any other 20th-century writer. We're talking nearly 100 movies and TV shows.
- The Painted Veil: You’ve probably seen the 2006 movie with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. It’s a gorgeous, heartbreaking story about a cheating wife and a vengeful doctor in the middle of a cholera epidemic in China.
- The Letter: A classic film noir starring Bette Davis, based on his short story about a woman who claims she shot a man in self-defense.
- Rain: His most famous short story. It’s been adapted over and over because it’s such a perfect pressure cooker of a plot—a prostitute and a missionary trapped in a room during a storm.
The Short Story Masterclass
A lot of critics actually think his short stories are better than his novels. He was a master of the "twist" ending before it became a cliché. In collections like The Casuarina Tree or The Mixture as Before, he explores the lives of British colonials in Southeast Asia.
He captures a very specific moment in history—the end of an empire. He shows the boredom, the alcoholism, and the simmering tensions of people living in places they don't belong. It’s not always "politically correct" by 2026 standards, but as a historical record of a certain kind of psychological rot, it’s unparalleled.
Cakes and Ale (1930) is another weirdly wonderful one. It’s a satire of the literary world. If you like "inside baseball" about writers and their egos, you’ll love it. It caused a massive scandal when it came out because everyone knew he was making fun of Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole.
Is He Too "Simple"?
Maugham used to call himself a "second-rate writer in the first rank."
He knew he wasn't James Joyce.
He wasn't trying to reinvent the language.
He just wanted to tell a story that people would actually finish. His prose is clear, direct, and incredibly easy to read. Some people think that makes him "less than."
But honestly?
Writing clearly is hard.
Making a reader care about a selfish stockbroker or a club-footed medical student is a feat of engineering. Maugham understood the human heart’s plumbing. He knew which pipes were clogged and where the leaks were.
How to Build Your Maugham Library
If you're looking to collect or just read the best w somerset maugham books, here is a logical progression:
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- Start with "The Painted Veil". It’s short, atmospheric, and moves fast. It’ll give you a taste of his style without a massive time commitment.
- Move to "The Razor’s Edge". It’s the most relatable for a modern audience.
- Tackle "Of Human Bondage". Save this for a long winter or a vacation. It’s a commitment, but it’s the one that stays with you forever.
- Find a "Collected Short Stories" volume. Specifically, look for the ones set in the South Seas. Stories like The Outstation and The Yellow Streak are absolute masterclasses in tension.
The best way to experience Maugham is to stop looking for "great literature" and start looking for a great story. He won't judge you for your flaws; he's already seen them all before, and he’s probably written a very entertaining chapter about them. Grab a copy of The Summing Up if you want to hear him talk about his own craft—it's one of the best books on writing ever published, mostly because he admits how much of it is just hard work and luck.