Travel Memoir PDF EPUB Audio

On a Chinese Screen

First published: 1922
Pages: 153

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5 h 8 min · 20 parts

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1 The Rising of the Curtain
4:01
2 My Lady's Parlour 3 The Mongol Chief 4 The Rolling Stone
10:19
5 The Cabinet Minister 6 Dinner Parties 7 The Altar of Heaven
19:22
8 The Servants of God 9 The Inn 10 The Glory Hole
16:04
11 Fear 12 The Picture 13 Her Britannic Majesty's Representative
18:51
14 The Opium Den 15 The Last Chance 16 The Nun
8:02
17 Henderson 18 Dawn 19 The Point of Honour
17:06
20 The Beast of Burden 21 Dr. Macalister 22 The Road
18:25
23 God's Truth 24 Romance 25 The Grand Style
19:05
26 Rain 27 Sullivan 28 The Dining-Room
15:43
29 Arabesque 30 The Consul 31 The Stripling
12:24
32 The Fannings 33 The Song of the River 34 Mirage
11:14
35 The Stranger 36 Democracy 37 The Seventh Day Adventist
14:10
38 The Philosopher 39 The Missionary Lady 40 A Game of Billiards
20:23
41 The Skipper 42 The Sights of the Town 43 Nightfall
12:41
44 The Normal Man 45 The Old Timer 46 The Plain
16:06
47 Failure 48 A Student of the Drama 49 The Taipan
28:13
50 Metempsychosis 51 The Fragment 52 One of the Best
13:01
53 The Sea-Dog 54 The Question 55 The Sinologue
14:14
56 The Vice-Consul 57 A Crrr Built on a Rock 58 Libation to the Gods
19:03

On a Chinese Screen (1922) is a public domain work.

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About this book

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

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 of people.