The skeptical romancer
Subtitle: selected travel writing
By: W. Somerset Maugham ; edited and introduced by Pico Iyer.
Contributors: Iyer, Pico.
Series: Everyman's library -- 324
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 196
ISBN-13: 9780307272126
Subjects: Maugham, W. Somerset -- 1874-1965 -- Travel; Maugham, W. Somerset -- 1874-1965 -- Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc; Authors, English -- 20th century -- Biography
Genres: Notebooks, sketchbooks, etc; Biography
Description: W. Somerset Maugham was one of the seminal writers of the twentieth century, and his travel writing has long been considered among his finest work. Now, acclaimed travel writer Pico Iyer maps out a masterful tour of these vivid, evocative pieces that are collected here for the first time. Maugham worked as a secret agent in Russia, published novels in London, staged plays in New York, and traveled throughout Europe, Asia, India, and the United States, chronicling his travels, wherever he went, with exceptional insight. Beginning with In the Land of the Blessed Virgin and culminating in A Partial View, Iyer selects vignettes of Maugham's razor-sharp prose that track his transformation from a boyish traveler in Spain to a worldly man of letters. This is Maugham at his most keenly observant, direct, and powerful.
Notes: "This is a Borzoi book"--T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references (p. xxv)