The Merry-go-round
()
About this ebook
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.
Read more from W. Somerset Maugham
The Painted Veil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Casuarina Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Moon and Sixpence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The W. Somerset Maugham Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTheatre Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Novels and Short Stories of Somerset Maugham Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Summing Up Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAshenden Or the British Agent Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Moon and Sixpence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Moon and Sixpence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Of Human Bondage (Diversion Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNine books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRain and Other South Sea Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trembling of a Leaf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Moon and Sixpence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On a Chinese Screen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Painted Veil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Explorer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to The Merry-go-round
Related ebooks
The Merry-go-round Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Merry-Go-Round: Modern Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Merry Go Round: "You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Murder of Delicia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs Craddock (A Dramatic Love Story) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIdols in the Heart: A Tale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Wayward Lady Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mrs Craddock (A Romantic Drama) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs Craddock: "It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs Craddock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Possessions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsManners: A Novel, Vol 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpinster of This Parish Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Virgin And The Gypsy: “A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA London Life, and Other Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Caraway's Cloak Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vexing Lady Violet: Lost Lords, #5 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whitewash Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMrs. Craddock Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wings of the Dove: Volution I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAudrey Craven Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gold of Chickaree Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wings of the Dove Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Arden's Redemption Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Forever After Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady Méchante Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRoderick Hudson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMystery and Confidence, Vol. 2 A Tale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
General Fiction For You
A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything's Fine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Merry-go-round
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Merry-go-round - W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
The Merry-go-round
Published by Good Press, 2022
goodpress@okpublishing.info
EAN 4057664620651
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
PART II THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER I
Table of Contents
ALL her life Miss Elizabeth Dwarris had been a sore trial to her relations. A woman of means, she ruled tyrannously over a large number of impecunious cousins, using her bank-balance like the scorpions of Rehoboam to chastise them, and, like many another pious creature, for their soul’s good making all and sundry excessively miserable. Nurtured in the evangelical ways current in her youth, she insisted that her connections should seek salvation according to her own lights; and, with harsh tongue and with bitter gibe, made it her constant business to persuade them of their extreme unworthiness. She arranged lives as she thought fit, and ventured not only to order the costume and habits, but even the inner thought of those about her: the Last Judgment could have no terrors for any that had faced her searching examination. She invited to stay with her in succession various poor ladies who presumed on a distant tie to call her Aunt Eliza, and they accepted her summons, more imperious than a royal command, with gratitude by no means unmixed with fear, bearing the servitude meekly as a cross which in the future would meet due testamentary reward.
Miss Dwarris loved to feel her power. During these long visits—for, in a way, the old lady was very hospitable—she made it her especial object to break the spirit of her guests; and it entertained her hugely to see the mildness with which were borne her extravagant demands, the humility with which every inclination was crushed. She took a malicious pleasure in publicly affronting persons, ostensibly to bend a sinful pride, or in obliging them to do things which they particularly disliked. With a singular quickness for discovering the points on which they were most sensitive, she attacked every weakness with blind invective till the sufferer writhed before her, raw and bleeding: no defect, physical or mental, was protected from her raillery, and she could pardon as little an excess of avoirdupois as a want of memory. Yet, with all her heart, she despised her victims, she flung in their face insolently their mercenary spirit, vowing that she would never leave a penny to such a pack of weak fools; it delighted her to ask for advice in the distribution of her property among charitable societies, and she heard, with unconcealed hilarity, their unwilling and confused suggestions.
With one of her relations only, Miss Dwarris found it needful to observe a certain restraint, for Miss Ley, perhaps the most distant of her cousins, was as plain-spoken as herself, and had, besides, a far keener wit whereby she could turn rash statements to the utter ridicule of the speaker. Nor did Miss Dwarris precisely dislike this independent spirit; she looked upon her in fact with a certain degree of affection and not a little fear. Miss Ley, seldom lacking a repartee, appeared really to enjoy the verbal contests, from which, by her greater urbanity, readiness, and knowledge, she usually emerged victorious: it confounded, but at the same time almost amused, the elder lady that a woman so much poorer than herself,