Of Human Bondage (1915) is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Inspired by his experiences as an orphan and young student, Maugham composed his masterpiece. Adapted several times for film, Of Human Bondage is a story of tragedy, perseverance, and the eternal search for happiness which drives us as much as it haunts our every move. Orphaned as a boy, Philip Carey is raised in an affectionless household by his aunt and uncle. Although his Aunt Louisa tries to make him feel welcome, William proves an uncaring, vindictive man. Left to fend for himself most days, Philip finds solace in the family’s substantial collection of books, which serve as an escape for the imaginative boy. Sent to study at a prestigious boarding school, Philip struggles to fit in with his peers, who abuse him for his intelligence and club foot. Despite his struggles, he perseveres in his studies and chooses his own path in life, moving to Heidelberg, Germany and denying his uncle’s wish that he attend Oxford. As he struggles to become a professional artist, Philip learns that one’s dreams are often unsubstantiated in the world of the living. Of Human Bondage is a tale of desire, disappointment, and romance by a master stylist with a keen sense of the complications inherent to human nature. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

An essay recounting the breakup of the marriage of Somerset Maugham and his wife, Syrie.

This premium quality large print edition contains the complete and unabridged text of Of Human Bondage, printed on heavy, bright white 60# paper in a large 7.44"x9.69" format, with a fully laminated full-color cover featuring an original design. Widely regarded as his masterpiece, Of Human Bondage is W. Somerset Maugham's story of a young man's search for meaning in a world that seems almost intentionally cruel. Philip Carey's club foot subjects him to cruelty at school and ridicule as an adult. Growing introspective and solitary, he suffers silently, aching to find love while lavishing his attention in what others would see as hopeless causes and futile gestures, struggling to do what he believes is right, albeit often for misguided reasons. The title derives from Spinoza's notion that man is often compelled to act - in effect, held in bondage - by human passions he is unable to control. The extent to which the novel is autobiographical has long been debated, and while Maugham initially maintained it was predominantly fiction, in his later years he admitted that his works contained such an intertwined mixture of fact and fiction that it had become increasingly difficult for him to separate the two. Clearly there are numerous autobiographical elements in the novel. Maugham, like his protagonist, was orphaned and raised by an emotionally distant uncle and eventually sent to boarding school where his disability - Maugham had a pronounced stammer - subjected him to ridicule. He traveled and studied in Germany and France, took up medicine, living and working among London's poor, and subsequently abandoned the profession. And Maugham would later say that, like Philip Carey, he had often directed his affection at those who did not return it. W. Somerset Maugham... William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was a British author and playwright. Among the most popular writers of his era he is reputed to have been the highest paid author of the 1930s. Maugham lost both parents by the age of 10 and was raised by an emotionally detached paternal uncle. Rejecting the legal career followed by most of the men in his family, Maugham eventually opted for medical training, studying for five years at St. Thomas Hospital in Lambeth, London, gaining certification as a medic. With the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), he gave up medicine to write full-time. During the First World War he served with the British Red Cross ambulance corps and, beginning in 1916, with the British Secret Intelligence Service, working in Switzerland and Russia before the Bolsheviks seized power from the provisional government that followed the Russian Revolution. During and after the war he travelled in India and Southeast Asia. Incorporating his impressions in later short stories and novels, he came to be regarded as a major chronicler of the twilight of the colonial era. Successful as both a novelist and a playwright, Maugham became quite wealthy. In his later years he was widely respected and viewed with affection by the public, but those years were clouded by an acrimonious dispute with his daughter over his estate, and this ugly quarrel, during which he publicly asserted that he was not in fact her father, tarnished his reputation and cost him several friends. In fact, Elizabeth had been conceived and born while Maugham was involved in an affair with her mother, who was still married to her first husband. While Maugham subsequently married Syrie Wellcome and was in fact most likely Elizabeth's biological father, the primary emotional relationship of his life was with Frederick Gerald Haxton, who became his companion and lover until Haxton's death in 1944. Maugham spent his declining years at his villa in France, where he died as a result of pneumonia in 1965.

Holy War and Human Bondage: Tales of Christian-Muslim Slavery in the Early-Modern Mediterranean tells a story unfamiliar to most modern readers—how this pervasive servitude involved, connected, and divided those on both sides of the Mediterranean. The work explores how men and women, Christians and Muslims, Jews and sub-Saharan Africans experienced their capture and bondage, while comparing what they went through with what black Africans endured in the Americas. Drawing heavily on archival sources not previously available in English, Holy War and Human Bondage teems with personal and highly felt stories of Muslims and Christians who personally fell into captivity and slavery, or who struggled to free relatives and co-religionists in bondage. In these pages, readers will discover how much race slavery and faith slavery once resembled one other and how much they overlapped in the Early-Modern mind. Each produced its share of personal suffering and social devastation—yet the whims of history have made the one virtually synonymous with human bondage while confining the other to almost complete oblivion.

Perhaps everything we think, feel, and do is determined, and humans--like stones or clouds--are slaves to the laws of nature. Would that be a terrible state? Philosophers who take the incompatibilist position think so, arguing that a deterministic world would be one without moral responsibility and perhaps without true love, meaningful art, and real rationality. But compatibilists and semicompatibilists argue that determinism need not worry us. As long as our actions stem, in an appropriate way, from us, or respond in some way to reasons, our actions are meaningful and can be judged on their moral (or other) merit. In this highly original work, Nomy Arpaly argues that a deterministic world does not preclude moral responsibility, rationality, and love--in short, meaningful lives--but that there would still be something lamentable about a deterministic world. A person may respond well to reasons, and her actions may faithfully reflect her true self or values, but she may still feel that she is not free. Arpaly argues that compatibilists and semicompatibilists are wrong to dismiss this feeling--for which there are no philosophical consolations--as philosophically irrelevant. On the way to this bittersweet conclusion, Arpaly sets forth surprising theories about acting for reasons, the widely accepted idea that "ought implies can," moral blame, and more.

In 1790, Xavier de Maistre was 27 years old, and a soldier in the army of the Sardinian Kingdom, which covered swathes of modern-day Northern Italy and Southern France. He was placed under house-arrest in Turin for fighting an illegal duel. It was during the 42 days of his confinement here that he wrote the manuscript that would become Voyage autour de ma chambre. Inspired by the works of Laurence Sterne, with their digressive and colloquial style, de Maistre decided to make the most of his sentence by recording an exploration of the room as a travel journal. de Maistre’s book imbues the tour of his chamber with great mythology and grand scale. As he wanders the few steps that it takes to circumnavigate the space, his mind spins off into the ether. It parodies the travel journals of the eighteenth-century (such as A Voyage Around the World by Louis de Bougainville, 1771), and could be read today as an early take on the modern vogue for “psychogeography” — each tiny thing that he encounters sends de Maistre into rhapsodies, and mundane journeys become magnificent voyages.

During World War I W. Somerset Maugham, already by then an established playwright and author, was recruited to be a British intelligence agent. These stories reflect his wartime experiences in intelligence gathering. Though fictionalized, they managed to retain enough authentic elements for Winston Churchill to advise Maugham that their publication might be a violation of the Official Secrets Act, resulting in the author burning an additional 14 stories. Set in various locales across the continent, these remaining Ashenden stories are a precursor to the jet-setting spy novels of the 1950s and 1960s. Maugham is known as a master short story writer and these stories are no exception, combining wit and realism to create memorable characters in a unique and highly critical portrait of wartime espionage. Initially released to a mixed reception—with an early review by D. H. Lawrence being especially scathing—Ashenden has since been credited as an inspiration for numerous authors, including John Le Carré, Graham Greene, and Raymond Chandler. The latter in particular was especially impressed, writing in 1950, “There are no other great spy stories—none at all. I have been searching and I know.” This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.