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Of Human Bondage is a novel written by W. Somerset Maugham. Released in 1915, it is semi-autobiographical and tells of the early life of one Philip Carey.
Characters[]
- Philip Carey
- Emma - Philip's nurse as a child
rest to be added
Publisher's summary[]
1930s Doubleday hardback reprint (includes a foreword by Maugham)
THE HIGHEST PRAISE that a critic of modern literature can bestow upon a new novel is to attribute to it some of the qualities which have made OF HUMAN BONDAGE the greatest autobiographical novel of the twentieth century and one of the few indisputable classics of our time. Today every word that comes from Somerset Maugham's gifted pen is eagerly read by thousands on both sides of the Atlantic. As the author of Cakes and Ale, East and West, The Moon and Sixpence, Don Fernando, Theatre, and many other best sellers, Mr. Maugham is universally recognized as a master of English letters, but the critics and the reading public are agreed that OF HUMAN BONDAGE remains his masterpiece.
The story if that of the first thirty years of Philip Carey's life. Through Philip's intelligent and remarkably clear eyes one sees an English school, a German University, a colony of artistic failures in Paris, a dreary business house in London, a large hospital and a village on the British coast. All these places, and many more, come as close to the reader as they did to Philip. It is an intensely personal story. One suffers with the sensitive boy the bitter realization of his physical handicap, enjoys his friendships and shares his problems. Like Philip, the personality through which the very real experience of the book is passed, one realizes that if one has lived thoroughly, that life has a meaning and a pattern as rich, though as unsymmertrical, as those formed by the colors in an oriental rug.
Plot[]
Presumably in the 1880s, young club-footed Philip Carey is born to a surgeon - who dies of blood poisoning around the same time - and his wife, whom soon falls ill. While Philip is a young boy, he is cared for by a nurse named Emma. After his mother dies of her illness, Philip is sent to live with his uncle. Though Philip's uncle refuses to keep his new son and his nurse together, Emma promises to keep in touch with the young Philip.
rest to be added
Notes[]
- Maugham wrote an embryonic form of the book (dubbed The Artistic Temperament of Stephen Carey) rather early into his writing career. This version was rejected by several publishers, and Maugham shelved it while he began work on his career as a playwright. Several years later, Maugham reworked The Artistic Temperament as Beauty from Ashes (though he changed the name to Of Human Bondage, a quote from Baruch de Spinoza's Ethics, after learning that the title was already in use).[1]
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sons and Lovers | D.H. Lawrence | 1913 | A bildungsroman novel based on the author's life |
| The Razor's Edge | W. Somerset Maugham | 1944 | A novel by the same author with similar themes |
| A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | James Joyce | 1916 | A bildungsroman novel based on the author's life |
| Stoner | John Williams | 1965 | A novel with a similar protagonist |
| The Heart of the Matter | Graham Greene | 1948 | A novel with similar themes |
| The Stranger | Albert Camus | 1942 | A novel with a vaguely similar protagonist |
Sources[]
- ↑ Maugham's foreword to the 1935 Doubleday edition of Of Human Bondage