Short Stories: Stories of desire, hypocrisy and human weakness from a master of the form

Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection.

In acclaimed stories such as ‘Rain’, ‘The Letter’, ‘The Vessel of Wrath’ and ‘The Alien Corn’, Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama from an acute sense of time and place.

Set chiefly in the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and among British expatriate and colonial communities, these classic short stories explore moral strain, social hypocrisy, exile, failed idealism and desire. Again and again, Maugham strips away the public version of events to reveal motives that are weaker, crueller and more human than society admits.

What gives these stories their force is Maugham’s restraint. He rarely presses for judgement, but lets gossip, memory and circumstance do their work, leaving his characters exposed in ways that feel sharp, ironic and deeply human.