The Gentleman In The Parlour [Paperback] Maugham, W. Somerset and Theroux, Paul

Author: Maugham, W. Somerset

Brand: Vintage Classics

Binding: paperback

Number Of Pages: 240

Release Date: 01-10-2001

Part Number: 9780099286776

Details: Product Description
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PAUL THEROUX
Somerset Maugham's success as a writer enabled him to indulge his adventurous love of travel, and he recorded the sights and sounds of his wide-ranging journeys with an urbane, wry style all his own. The Gentleman in the Parlour is an account of the author's trip through what was then Burma and Siam, ending in Haiphong, Vietnam. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham's vivid descriptions bring a lost world to life.
Review
There enough raw material to sate his imagination and the journey itself takes on the contours of a story worth recording. Among the coolly-observed descriptions of ruined pagodas there's the added treat of Maugham's catty thoughts on his craft ―
Sunday Herald (Glasgow)

Maugham's finest travel book...As the urbane novelist wends his way through tropic climes, he reads Proust under the mosquito netting, listens to stories of passion and madness from British colonials gone to seed, and bears up under the merciless sun, sipping at a gin and bitters and laying out a hand of solitaire ―
Washington Post

An elegant writer's notebook, imaginative, crammed with impressions and ideas received simply and directly, without the filtering screens of literariness or Englishness... he writes with majestic plainness ―
The Times

A delightful book - It contains vivid travel impressions, some autobiographical confidences, and the plots for a dozen novels ―
Spectator
From the Inside Flap
Best known for his novels and plays, Somerset Maugham also produced delightfully engaging and absorbing non-fiction, of which
The Gentleman in the Parlour is a prime example. First published in 1935 it describes a journey the author took from Rangoon to Haipong. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham?s muse is in the spirit of Hazlitt, who wrote: ?It is great to shake off the trammels of the world and public opinion...and to be known by no other title than
The Gentleman in the Parlour.
From the Back Cover
“ A delightful book. It contains vivid travel impressions...and the plots for a dozen novels.” –
Spectator
About the Author
William Somerset Maugham, famous as novelist, playwright and short-story writer, was born in 1874, and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with a view to practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to letters. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. His position as a successful playwright was being consolidated at the same time. His first play, A Man of Honour, was followed by a series of successes just before and after World War I, and his career in the theatre did not end until 1933 with Sheppey.
His fame as a short story writer began with The Trembling of a Leaf, subtitled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, in 1921, after which he published more than ten collections. His other works include travel books such as On a Chinese Screen, and Don Fernando, essays, criticism, and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook.
In 1927, he settled in the south of France, and lived there until his death in 1965.


Paul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts, in 1941, and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. He wrote his next three novels, Fong and the Indians, Girls at Play and Jungle Lovers, after a five-year stay in Africa. He subsequently taught at the University of Singapore, and during his three years there produced a collection of short stories, Sinning with Annie, and highly praised novel Saint Jack

EAN: 9780099286776

Package Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches

Languages: English