30 Great Short Stories

by W. Somerset Maugham

Rain --
The fall of Edward Barnard --
Honolulu --
The art and the grasshopper --
The pool --
Mackintosh --
The three fat women of Antibes --
The facts of life --
Gigolo and Gigolette --
The voice of the turtle --
The unconquered --
The Escape --
Mr. Know-All --
The romantic young lady --
A man from Glasgow --
Before the party --
The vessel of wrath --
Louise --
The promise --
The yellow streak --
The force of circumstance --
Flotsam and jetsam --
The alien corn --
The creative impulse --
Virtue --
The closed shop --
The dream --
The Colonel's lady --
Miss King --
The hairless Mexican --

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

455 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.

His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.

Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way.

During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.

At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.

Reviews

[Ian Laird · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would be interesting to know the criteria used to select the 30 great short stories because it is a moot point how many qualify.

It is beyond contention that Maugham’s language is elegant, purposeful and descriptive. He gets into the minds of his vivid characters. He writes women characters well. But the world has moved on, and the bulk of the stories are out of date, repetitious in theme and content and tired.

However, the good stuff is very good. Rain and The Three Fat Women of Antibes, are justly famed. Rain is powerful: a South Seas missionary is driven to reform a girl who is no better than she ought to be, but falls to temptation. It’s a sensational story well told. I pictured Walter Huston and Joan Crawford from the 1929 movie, made before the Production Code kicked in so the immorality is on full display.

In The Three Fat Women of Antibes, women of means and indulgence attempt to curb their excesses, especially eating, but end up giving in to them, to delightful effect; Maugham is in enjoyable humorous mode. A story which holds up well.

There are other memorable tales: a sad one suggesting that hard work and application is not sufficient when talent or a gift is lacking (The Alien Corn); and an African Queen style fable of the spinster and the drunkard who find something unexpected in each other (The Vessel of Wrath).

Several spiritual lessons appear suggesting the path to happiness is anti-materialist, perhaps owing something to The Razor’s Edge, viz: The Fall of Edward Barnard and The Ant and the Grasshopper.

I was startled to find two chapters Miss King and The Hairless Mexican, lifted from Maugham’s enjoyable episodic spy novel Ashenden, which I read recently, and which prompted me to seek out his short stories. He wrote upwards of 100 and here we have 30 of the great ones, supposedly. If these are the greatest, I might leave the rest for now.

The majority in this selection are set in British colonial territories like Malaya and Borneo and the South Seas, featuring outposted agents, planters and superintendents, expatriates of one kind or another who live lives of outward privilege, but are prisoners of isolation and duty, prey to human needs and weaknesses, almost always succumbing to the need for human intimacy, embarking on relationships with native women which regularly see the men degenerate, falling to alcohol, loneliness, instability and depression. Often finding themselves drowned, shot, suiciding or just abandoned. Because white folks and brown folks and yellow folks just don’t mix.

Some of these expatriate stories are pretty good, but there’s just so many of them which are very similar. I lost patience with these trials in foreign lands, when I came across one Virtue which switched perspectives to the character not fitting in back home in England.

The Force of Circumstance is a good one though. After a decade of service, Guy, a superintendent in Sembulu (modern Indonesia) goes back to England on leave, quickly marries Doris, then returns with her to his post. She spots a native woman who stares. Turns out our boy has a native wife and three kids, but he neglected to tell his new white wife, who retires to a separate room for six months to work out how she feels about this development. Well, she feels betrayed and packs up. A young boy comes to the bungalow later that day. Guy sends him back with a message: ‘Tell your mother to pack up her things and yours. She can come back.’
‘When?’ asked the boy, impassively.
Hot tears trickled down Guy’s funny, round, spotty face.
‘Tonight’ (p300)

PS: Maugham trained as a doctor, one of a small group of such gravitating to the arts: Graeme Garden, George Miller, Arthur Conan Doyle. And two who continue/d as doctors as well as writing: Peter Goldsworthy and Anton Chekov.

[Benito · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a young man I read Somerset Maugham's novel 'Cakes & Ale' and it did not, from memory, make an outstanding impression upon me. Perhaps I was too young to appreciate it, or perhaps the novel is not Maugham's medium?

I have decided now that the latter is the case since, whilst on holiday in the Southern Highlands at the country home of a generous patron, I started reading Maugham's collected short stories (three volumes of the four volume set occupying the lake-side cottages small library) and was blown away not so much by the stories events as by Maugham's magnificently elegant writing style.

Reading one of Maugham's short stories is like lunching in the tropical sun with a glass of Pims or Pastis de Marseille (both of which were on hand in Burrawang, near my reading-hammock) whereupon you are joined by the most witty, erudite and charming person you're ever likely to meet. And then he tells you a tall tale.

I particularly like the way Maugham switches between long, almost ramblingly convoluted, many paragraphed, sentences. To short tight ones. A literary music of the highest order.

Upon my return to the big smoke I rushed to Gould's Book Arcade, Newtown, and finally, amongst the piles of mouldering tomes and kipping inner-western addicts that occupied the aisles of the last of Sydney's great second-hand book warehouses, I found this old hardcover. Whilst not the Complete I was looking for it is rather a selection of thirty of the best stories from the four-volume set. I will, at some later time read all four volumes, but this is a good start, and a great traveller.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes a collection of short stories is appropriate between novels. This one was quite good. The author writes about human foibles. Of the first two short stories, 'Rain' was about a missionary who is stranded with his wife and others on an island because of a depressing rain and what happens to him and those around him because of his dedication to his religion and his humaness. The second was 'The Fall of Edward Barnard' which looks at life and how one copes with a love that one loses and how to live it according to your values. I particularly liked 'The Romantic Young Lady'. Maugham's grasp of human nature is astounding. Really enjoyed 'Gigolo and Gigolette', 'The Unconquered', and 'The Escape'. I laughed when I read Escape and how a man manages to elude marriage with a desperate widow. 'Three Fat Women' was so funny as the women play bridge with a woman who is thin and wins so much money from them. 'The Pool' and 'Macintosh' were so sad. 'The Ant and the Grasshopper' was quite humorous. 'The Yellow Streak' focuses on the fear of dying and how one man deals with it. 'The Colonel's Lady' was hilarious as a husband discovers something about his wife that the never dreamed would happen and 'Miss King' leaves one wondering what she really meant to say as she lay dying. Sometimes we don't ever know.

[Cheryl Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting change from my usual reading.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far (all titles are starred):

Rain (aka Miss Thompson)--3
The fall of Edward Barnard --3
Honolulu --
The art and the grasshopper --3
The pool --
Mackintosh --
The three fat women of Antibes --
The facts of life --3
Gigolo and Gigolette --
The voice of the turtle --
The unconquered --
The escape (aka A widow's might)--
Mr. Know-All --
The romantic young lady --
A man from Glasgow --
Before the party --3
The vessel of wrath --
Louise (aka The most selfish woman I knew)--
The promise (aka An honest woman)--
The yellow streak --
The force of circumstance --3
Flotsam and jetsam --
The alien corn --
The creative impulse --3
Virtue --
The closed shop --
The dream --2
The colonel's lady --
Miss King --[see Ashenden]
The hairless Mexican -- [see Ashenden]
***
The book-bag
The door of opportunity
The end of the flight --2
Episode
The footprints in the jungle --3
A friend in need (aka The man who wouldn't hurt a fly) --2
The happy couple --3
The human element
In a strange land --2
Jane
The judgment seat --2
The kite
The letter --4
Lord Mountdrago (aka Doctor and patient) --3
The lotus eater --3
The luncheon
Mabel
Neil MacAdam
An official position --3
The outstation
P. & O. (aka Bewitched)
The point of honour --2
A point of law --3
Red --3
The round dozen
Salvatore
A string of beads (aka Pearls)
The taipan --3
Told in the inn at Algeciras --2
The treasure (aka The best ever)
The verger (aka The man who made his mark)
Winter cruise (aka The captain and Miss Reid)

[Michael Carrier · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a very enjoyable read. Most of the stories were not what I consider to be short stories. Nor were they very good. Just glad to be done with the book.