Product Description

Berta Ley comes of age, inherits her father's money and promptly marries a handsome, calm and unimaginative man. Bertha is wildly in love with Edward and believes she can be happy playing the role of a dutiful wife in their country home. But, intelligent and sensual, she quickly becomes bored by her oppressively conventional life, and finds her love for her husband slipping away. Originally rejected by publishers, "Mrs. Craddock" was first published only on condition that certain 'shocking' passages were removed. It was thirty years before the full text could be published.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #274412 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
Maugham's best work as a novelist...ahead of its time New York Times

From the Back Cover
Assertive and sensual, Bertha Ley finds herself carried away by a passion for Edward Craddock, a young man she has known since childhood. She sees in marriage to him a chance to escape from the quiet life she leads with her aunt - and to experience true love.
But, passionate and full of life, she discovers that little in her marriage to the dutiful and sensible Edward meets her expectations. And as passion dies, she finds herself trapped in an oppressively incongruous marriage.
Rejected by publisher after publisher, Mrs Craddock was finally published only on the condition that various 'shocking' passages were removed. Maugham, unable to see what was so offensive, was delighted when the book was reissued thirty years later in its original form.

About the Author
William Somerset Maugham 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 the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. 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. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

Customer Reviews

A must read
I loved this book. Maugham gives us a portrait of a marriage between a passionate woman and a dull and dutyful man, starting from the moment he proposes to her. Bertha Craddock easily becomes one of the great females in his books or plays. She is certainly one of the earliest ones. Maugham usually bittersweet taste is the resposability of Bertha's aunt, who dissects that marriage with a clinical eye. A must read.

Not bad for an early Maugham
Definitely not a Maugham classic, I would only recommend it as one of the better early works and for the references to it in his later books. Read it if you're a Maugham fan already, but don't bother otherwise, as it may put you off reading Maugham's better later work.