Collected Short Stories

This four-volume gathering reprints Maugham's short fiction as arranged in the mid-century collected edition, more than seventy stories in all. Settings run from the Federated Malay States and the South Seas to London, the Riviera, and drawing rooms of people who live on money and reputation. Recurring subjects are marriage as a bargain, colonial isolation, sexual hypocrisy, and the sudden exposure of a private life. Several cycles follow the same narrator through clubs and steamer decks. The stories are plotted anecdotes rather than mood pieces: a secret, a bargain, or a cruelty is revealed, and the social surface closes again.

Bound in image blocked, each volume a different colour. Dark red four-volume slipcase, title and image printed on front in white and gold.