Editing W. Somerset Maugham (section)

===Novels===
{{see also|List of works by W. Somerset Maugham#Novels and story collections}}
[[File:Of-human-bondage-cover-1915.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[Of Human Bondage]]'', 1915 American edition, with the Maugham symbol on the cover|alt=spine and front cover of hardbound book]]
Maugham published novels in every decade from the 1890s to the 1940s. There are nineteen in all, of which those most often mentioned by critics are ''Liza of Lambeth'', ''Of Human Bondage'', ''The Painted Veil'', ''Cakes and Ale'', ''The Moon and Sixpence'' and ''The Razor's Edge''.<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100141957 "W. Somerset Maugham"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817124531/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100141957 |date=17 August 2022 }}, Oxford Reference;  [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192806871.001.0001/acref-9780192806871-e-4965 "Maugham, W. Somerset"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817124537/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192806871.001.0001/acref-9780192806871-e-4965 |date=17 August 2022 }}, ''The Oxford Companion to English Literature''; and Sutherland, John. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192122711.001.0001/acref-9780192122711-e-1879 "Maugham, W. Somerset"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220813232653/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192122711.001.0001/acref-9780192122711-e-1879 |date=13 August 2022 }}, ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English''. Oxford University Press, 2005 and 2009. Retrieved 17 August 2022 {{subscription required}}</ref>

''Liza of Lambeth'' caused outrage in some quarters, not only because its heroine sleeps with a married man, but also for its graphic depiction of the deprivation and squalor of the London slums, of which most people from Maugham's social class preferred to remain ignorant.<ref>Morgan, pp. 55 and 57</ref> Unlike many of Maugham's later novels it has an unequivocally tragic ending.<ref>Morgan, p. 53</ref>

''Of Human Bondage'', influenced by [[Goethe]] and [[Samuel Butler (novelist)|Samuel Butler]],<ref name=sohb>Sutherland, John. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192122711.001.0001/acref-9780192122711-e-2164 "Of Human Bondage"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220726185026/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192122711.001.0001/acref-9780192122711-e-2164 |date=26 July 2022 }}, ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English'', Oxford University Press, 2005. Retrieved 17 August 2022 {{subscription required}}</ref> is a serious, partly autobiographical work, depicting a young man's struggles and emotional turmoil. The hero survives, and by the end of the book he is evidently set for a happy ending.<ref name=odnb/> ''The Painted Veil'' is a story of marital strife and adultery against the background of a [[cholera]] epidemic in Hong Kong. Again, despite the suffering of the main characters, there is a reasonably happy ending for the central figure, Kitty.<ref>Meyers, pp. 164–165</ref>

''Cakes and Ale'' combines humorous satire on the London literary scene and wry observations about love. Like ''Of Human Bondage'' it has a strong female character at its centre, but the two are polar opposites: the malign Mildred in the earlier novel contrasts with the lovable, and much loved, Rosie in ''Cakes and Ale''.<ref>Ross, pp. 117–118</ref> Rosie appears to be based on Sue Jones, to whom Maugham had proposed in 1913.<ref>Meyers, p. 199</ref> He observed, "I am willing enough to agree with common opinion that ''Of Human Bondage'' is my best work. It is the kind of book that an author can only write once. After all, he has only one life. But the book I like best is ''Cakes and Ale''. It was an amusing book to write."<ref>Maugham (1950), pp. xi–xii</ref>

''The Moon and Sixpence'' is the story of a man rejecting a conventional lifestyle, family obligations and social responsibility to indulge his ambition to be a painter.<ref>Morgan, p. 239</ref> The structure of the book is unusual in that the protagonist is already dead before the novel opens, and the narrator attempts to piece together his story, and particularly his final years in Tahitian exile. ''The Razor's Edge'', the author's last major novel,<ref name=odnb/> is described by Sutherland as "Maugham's twentieth-century manifesto for human fulfilment", satirising Western materialism and drawing on Eastern spiritualism as a way to find meaning in existence.<ref>Sutherland, John. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192122711.001.0001/acref-9780192122711-e-2399 "Razor's Edge, The"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220817123031/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192122711.001.0001/acref-9780192122711-e-2399 |date=17 August 2022 }}, ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English'', Oxford University Press, 2005. Retrieved 17 August 2022 {{subscription required}}</ref>