Creatures of Circumstance

This is Somerset Maugham's last short story collection: published 32 years after his first masterpiece, ''Of Human Bondage'' (1915), and one year before his last work of fiction, ''Catalina'' (1948). In the preface to the First American edition of his ''Complete Short Stories'' (1952) Maugham said flatly that he had written his last short story. As always, he was as good as his word. In 1933 he said farewell to the stage and never wrote another play; in 1948 he announced his retirement from writing fiction and to the rest of his life he wrote only essays. Considering the level of excellence of Maugham's last works of fiction, I cannot but feel sorry that in the last 15 years or so from his career as a writer he did not write a single short story, let alone a novel. But then I reflect that Maugham was everything but stupid; he surely was a man who knew his own mind pretty well. If he had few illusions about his fellows, he had none about himself. He must have sensed that his creative powers were failing in the late 1940s, although I still can't sense that at all, to make such a grave decision. It is very much to his credit that he had the resolution to stop when he still was, to my mind completely, at the height of his creative powers.

I am often amazed not just by Maugham's longevity and productivity as a writer, but much more by his maintaining extraordinary high quality in his writing for more than quarter of a century. Speaking of short stories, ''Creatures of Circumstance'' was Maugham's eight short story collection published exactly 26 years after his first masterpiece in the genre, ''Trembling of a Leaf'' (1921). These eight volumes contain exactly 84 short stories written during quarter of a century or so; not even one of them is unreadable or tedious; the worst of them can be counted on the fingers of two hands and even they are not unpleasant to read. The great majority of Maugham's short stories I have never hesitated to describe as brilliant masterpieces; their superb character and plot development as well as their eminent readability, and especially the combination of all these factors, can occasionally be equalled by others but it is simply impossible to be surpassed. Of course the fifteen stories in ''Creatures of Circumstance'' are totally different in character than the ones written 20 years or so earlier but they are hardly weaker in any aspect. Now, I really do find this amazing.

''Creatures of Circumstance'' starts with a compelling preface which bears the charming title ''The Author Excuses Himself''. Maugham explains first that in the preface to his previous volume of short stories, The Mixture as Before (1940), he had written the line 'I shall not write many more [stories]' but the editor, thinking perhaps that Maugham had already written quite enough stories, dropped the 'm' and the line became 'I shall not write any more [stories]'. So he had had the intention of publishing another volume right back in 1940 and did not wish to mislead his readers deliberately by such a statement. He then mentions that some of the stories were written a long time ago but he preferred to leave them unchanged (somewhat misleading statement as we shall see presently) and that the rest were new. This is not quite true either since some of the stories (''Appearance and Reality'' and ''A Casual Affair'', for instance) were published in magazines as early as 1934 and Sanatorium appeared on the pages of ''Cosmopolitan'' in the end of 1938. Anyway, that is neither here nor there. Infinitely more important is the fact that there is a lot to enjoy here. The diversity of styles, settings and locations is that I at least find very much appealing.

Surprisingly, since in 1936 for the preface of ''Ah King'' in The Collected Edition Maugham said he had written his last so called ''exotic'' stories, ''Creatures of Circumstance'' contains one such story. ''Flotsam and Jetsam'' is a rather harrowing tale but compelling nonetheless. It reminds of Maugham's finest achievements about planters in the Far East who are slaves of their darkest and most sinister passions. Less violent but hardly less memorable passions are the protagonists also in two other short stories - the exquisite ''A Woman of Fifty'' and the heart-rending ''A Casual Affair'' in which, among other things, Maugham enjoys satirizing the upper classes of long passed times.

But Maugham's versatility is really something to marvel at. Along the aforementioned grim and lurid tales, there are a number of extremely amusing stories that can always make you laugh a good deal. The French or the English marital complications in ''Appearance and Reality'' and ''The Colonel's Lady'', respectively, or the unforgettable Miss Reid in ''Winter Cruise'' are a perfect way to relax. It should be mentioned that ''Winter Cruise'' is also a perfect example how Maugham could write amusing and enjoyable thing to read using the stupidest and most banal plot in the world.

The three ''Spanish'' stories certainly are worth mentioning too. ''The Romantic Young Lady'' is rather funny and ''The Point of Honour'', showing some quite perverse sides of Spain and the Spaniards, is rather serious and disturbing but both are absorbing. And ''The Mother'', quite lurid and shocking, is one of the very few examples when Maugham, who detested his early works, was more or less completely satisfied with something he had written almost 40 years ago. ''The Mother'' was first published in ''Storyteller Magazine'' in April 1909. This early version appeared in book form not earlier than 1958 in ''The Cassell Miscellany''. Maugham did revise the story for its inclusion in ''Creatures of Circumstance'' but only slightly; on the whole he seemed content to leave it as it was which is somewhat contradictory to what he says in his preface but, on the other hand, he might have meant some of the stories that were published in magazines in the 1930s, a decade or so before, and not ''The Mother''. It is interesting to note that Jonh Whitehead, in the preface to the priceless ''A Traveller In Romance, Uncollected Writings of W. Somerset Maugham, 1901-1964'' (1984), mentions something about an early version of ''The Point of Honour'' too but I have so far not been able to find anything whatsoever that such version was ever published or existed at all; oddly, John Whitehead hints that Maugham rewrote the piece later and that his claim in the preface of ''Creatures of Circumstance'' is inaccurate but he did not choose to reprint this putative early version of ''The Point of Honour'' although it does seem to fit his criteria.

The case with ''The Happy Couple'' is quite different however. The two versions of this short story are quite different indeed and they provide the real Maugham admirer with a fascinating opportunity to see how the great writer developed his style through the years. The early version was first published in ''Cassell's Magazine'' in May 1908 and the later one in Redbook in February 1943 - they are separated by 35 years. It is worth while seeing how Maugham managed to improve significantly so early a story of his which, even in its 1908 version, is by no means bad. First he changed the narrative from third to first person singular. Maugham wrote a great deal about the art of fiction and the writing from first person. He often used the method to a great effect, invariably telling the story from a standpoint of an observer, never through the eyes of the protagonist. This is a very effective way to win the reader's confidence and make him live the whole story together with the author. That is exactly what Maugham achieved in the later version of ''The Happy Couple'' too. Moreover, he introduced a new character, the judge Landon, who is completely missing in the early version, so the story gained one point of view more. When you add to all this the greatly superior writing style that Maugham had in the early 1940s in comparison with the somewhat crude one in 1900s, it is hardly surprising that the rewritten version of ''The Happy Couple'' was the one included in ''Creatures of Circumstance''.

''A Man from Glasgow'' and ''Sanatorium'' deserved to be mentioned simply because the latter is one of the greatest short stories Maugham ever wrote and the former is one of the worst. ''A Man from Glasgow'' certainly is the worst from all 15 stories in ''Creatures of Circumstance''. It is one of Maugham's stories about mysterious phenomena, something of a ghost story actually, but rather unsuccessful and far from his brilliant earlier treatments of similar subjects like ''Honolulu'' (1921), ''P. & O.'' (1926) and ''Lord Mountdrago'' (1940). As for ''Sanatorium'', it is the only short story that includes the charming spy and gentlemen Ashenden, except of course all stories in ''Ashenden, or the British Agent'' (1928). ''Sanatorium'', however, is the only one written separately and as a short story by design, quite unlike Ashenden which consists of 16 chapters that were later merged into 6 short stories. ''Sanatorium'' was actually based on Maugham's own experience while he was recovering from tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Scotland during the First World War. The story is brilliantly executed and extremely poignant.

The last three stories that close the book, and Maugham's career as a short story writer, are as perfect as it is possible in so imperfect a world.

''The Unconquered'' was first published in a magazine in 1943 and it is the only short story of Maugham set in France during the Second World War. It is a haunting drama about a German soldier who raped a French girl and the multiple, and quite unexpected, consequences of that. It also contains one of the most unexpected and horrifying finales of all Maugham's stories.

''The Kite'' and ''Episode'' are the only two short stories of all Maugham wrote in which the prison confidant Ned Preston appears. He is more or less the only thing they have in common. ''The Kite'' has a highly original plot but very convincingly done, unbelievable as it may seem at first glance. It is rather amusing to read but it is by no means superficial. Together with the facetious satire of the middle class prejudices, Maugham gives a great deal more about human nature with his usual acumen. ''Episode'' is a story about love and passion between two young things. It has one of the most unexpected and one of the most chilling ends I have ever read. Every time when I read the story, and I have read it at least five times, I gasp after the final sentence. Maugham's sixth sense for dramatic effect never failed him and I do not believe that there are many authors who can compel you so strongly to read them and to shock you so profoundly with a last sentence of exactly three words.