num_pages: 240
description: First published in 1925, The Painted Veil is an affirmation of the human capacity to grow, change, and forgive. Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, it is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to a remote region of China ravaged by a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and overwhelmed by the desolation around her, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life. She takes up work with children at a convent, but when her husband dies, she is forced to return to England to her father, her one remaining relative, to raise her unborn child. Though too late for her marriage, she has learned humility, independence, and how to love.
language: English
title: The Painted Veil
titlecomplete: The Painted Veil
characters: Walter  Fane, Charlie Townsend, Dorothy Townsend, Kitty Garstin
genres: Fiction, Historical, Asia, British Literature, China, Romance, Literature, Classics, Historical Fiction, Audiobook
ratings_count: 44434
places: England, Hong Kong, China
publisher: Penguin Books