On a Chinese Screen
Traveling up the Yangtze in 1919 and 1920, Maugham filled his notebooks with quick portraits of the people he met, and this book gathers fifty-eight of them into short, sharp sketches. Some catch a Chinese scene in a few strokes, but the keenest are aimed at the Europeans abroad: missionaries, officials, traders, and lonely wives, each revealing how poorly they understand the country around them. Rather than a guidebook, it works as a gallery of character studies marked by Maugham’s cool eye and quiet irony. First published in 1922, it reads today as both travel writing and a study of the colonial mind. This free PDF and EPUB edition collects a slim, observant book that shows the novelist sharpening the human insight of his later fiction.
About the Author
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was one of the most popular British authors of the twentieth century, working across the novel, the short story, and the stage. He trained as a physician and served in wartime intelligence, experiences that sharpened his clear prose and unsentimental view…
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