Of Human Bondage

“[Of Human Bondage] was an entirely new departure. Maugham, who usually cultivates a fastidious detachment, shows in this work a personal commitment that was unusual, sweeping the reader up in his own passionate intensity. Compelling and uncompromising, written with an unflagging energy and drive, the work could hardly be more different from any he had previously published . . . The story closely follow[s] the events of Maugham’s early life, with at its centre the terrifying experience of a masochistic sexual obsession.” —from the Introduction by Selina Hastings