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    Of Human Bondage (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
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    Of Human Bondage (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
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    Of Human Bondage (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Ebook1,050 pages16 hours

    Of Human Bondage (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

    By W. Somerset Maugham and Carin Companick

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
    • New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
    • Biographies of the authors
    • Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
    • Footnotes and endnotes
    • Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
    • Comments by other famous authors
    • Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
    • Bibliographies for further reading
    • Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate
    All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.   One of the most widely read novels of the twentieth century, W. Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece Of Human Bondage gives a harrowing depiction of unrequited love. Philip Carey, a sensitive orphan born with a clubfoot, finds himself in desperate need of passion and inspiration. He abandons his studies to travel, first to Heidelberg, and then to Paris, where he nurses ambitions of becoming a great artist. Philip’s youthful idealism erodes, however, as he comes face-to-face with his own mediocrity and lack of impact on the world. After returning to London to study medicine, he becomes wildly infatuated with Mildred, a vulgar, tawdry waitress, and begins a doomed love affair that will change the course of his life.
     
    First published in 1915, the semi-autobiographical Of Human Bondage combines the values left over from the Victorian era with the prevailing irony and despair of the early twentieth century. Unsentimental yet bursting with deep feeling, Of Human Bondage remains Maugham’s most complete statement of the importance of physical and spiritual liberty, a theme that resounds more loudly than ever today.   Carin Companick is a freelance writer and a specialist in the field of language pro
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarnes & Noble Classics
    Release dateJun 1, 2009
    ISBN9781411432840
    Unavailable
    Of Human Bondage (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
    Author

    W. Somerset Maugham

    W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Born in Paris, he was orphaned as a boy and sent to live with an emotionally distant uncle. He struggled to fit in as a student at The King’s School in Canterbury and demanded his uncle send him to Heidelberg University, where he studied philosophy and literature. In Germany, he had his first affair with an older man and embarked on a career as a professional writer. After completing his degree, Maugham moved to London to begin medical school. There, he published Liza of Lambeth (1897), his debut novel. Emboldened by its popular and critical success, he dropped his pursuit of medicine to devote himself entirely to literature. Over his 65-year career, he experimented in form and genre with such works as Lady Frederick (1907), a play, The Magician (1908), an occult novel, and Of Human Bondage (1915). The latter, an autobiographical novel, earned Maugham a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s leading authors, and continues to be recognized as his masterpiece. Although married to Syrie Wellcome, Maugham considered himself both bisexual and homosexual at different points in his life. During and after the First World War, he worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service as a spy in Switzerland and Russia, writing of his experiences in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1927), a novel that would inspire Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. At one point the highest-paid author in the world, Maugham led a remarkably eventful life without sacrificing his literary talent.

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