Of Human Bondage

He wanted freedom. He found bondage. He called it love.

W. Somerset Maugham's masterpiece is a potent expression of the power of sexual obsession and of modern man's yearning for freedom. This classic bildungsroman tells the story of Philip Carey, a sensitive boy born with a clubfoot who is orphaned and raised by a religious aunt and uncle. Philip yearns for adventure, and at eighteen leaves home, eventually pursuing a career as an artist in Paris. When he returns to London to study medicine, he meets the androgynous but alluring Mildred and begins a doomed love affair that will change the course of his life.

Philip loses both parents as a child. His mother dies shortly after his father, and he is sent to live with his cold, indifferent uncle, a vicar in a small Kentish village. He is mocked at school for his clubfoot. He rebels against becoming a minister, spends a year in Heidelberg exploring atheism and bohemian ideas, tries and fails as an accountant, studies art in Paris, and finally settles on medicine—his late father's profession. Then he meets Mildred Rogers, a vulgar, selfish, uneducated waitress who treats him with contempt. He falls obsessively in love with her. He spends his inheritance on her. She leaves him for another man. She returns, pregnant and abandoned. He takes her in. She leaves him for his best friend. She returns again, now a prostitute with syphilis. He takes her in again. She destroys his belongings and disappears. Through it all, Philip cannot free himself from the woman who brings him nothing but misery.

This is Maugham at his most honest and unflinching: a novel about the chains we forge ourselves—family, religion, ambition, and the most irrational bondage of all: love. Of Human Bondage is widely considered Maugham's masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

• A deeply autobiographical work, drawing on Maugham's own experiences as an orphan, a medical student, and a man struggling with his sexuality

• Features Mildred Rogers, described by one contemporary critic as one of the most hateful and disagreeable female characters in fiction

• Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears, or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the hardest chains to break are the ones we choose to wear.

About the Author

W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer, one of the most popular and highest-paid authors of his time. Born in Paris, he was orphaned as a boy and sent to live with an emotionally distant uncle—experiences that would shape Of Human Bondage. He studied medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital in London, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), won him over to letters. His later masterpieces include The Moon and Sixpence (1919), Cakes and Ale (1930), and The Razor's Edge (1944). During and after World War I, he worked as a spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service, an experience that inspired his novel Ashenden (1927), which later influenced Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Maugham died in France in 1965.