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Product Description
LIZA OF LAMBETH is Maugham's first novel, and such is its power that it remains as vital today as when first written. Liza is a warm-hearted young girl, stifled by life in a London tenement.
Liza has been bred to it and externally can cope. But the heart is the problem: it craves love and affection.
"A fine book...shows all the promise of the author's later stories." (Editorial Reviews)
Customer Review: Slice of life depiction of England's underclass
This was Somerset Maugham's first novel and reflects the naturalistic tendencies popular with many novels written at the time. Set among the working poor in the slums of Lambeth, Liza Kemp rejects the marriage proposal of the decent and worthy Tom and becomes the lover of a married blackguard Jim Blakeston. He treats her horribly and when she becomes pregnant with his child, his wife savagely beats her, causing a miscarriage and her eventual death. Maugham does not moralize but writes in an almost clinical manner (much of it is based on his experiences as a doctor among the poor in London). There is some humor in the dialect writing and in some of the scenes (the street dance where Liza is chased and finally "caught" by Blakeston, for example), but basically it's a pretty grim affair. The characterization of Liza is realistic and believable: she is not a total innocent and victim of evil, though she is forced to take an awful amount of abuse. Perhaps her rejection of Tom (twice!) stretches our credulity, but she is faithful to the no-good Jim right to the bitter end. It's a realistic slice-of-life portrait of life among the underclass.
Customer Review: Maugham's debut novel
"Liza of Lambeth," Maugham's literary debut, is a less accomplished and complex novel than later masterpieces such as "The Razor's Edge" and "The Moon and Sixpence." Nevertheless, this novel is well worth the read. It chronicles Liza, a young woman who lives in a lower class London neighborhood. She struggles as she works in a factory and helps her alcoholic mother. Despite the rather grim setting, the characters are suprisingly full of life and humor. Liza is a bit of a social butterfly in the neighborhood and is well-liked until she garners the attention of a married man. This connection grows with tragic consequences. There is little sentimentality in the novel, and Maugham was apparently inspired by his work as a medical student in the London slums. Overall, a quick read and a good character study of a young, head-strong woman in late 19th century London.
Customer Review: Beautiful picture of lower-class subarban London
The story plot is nothing extraordinary, nor are the characaters unique, but what sets this short novel apart from the rest is the vivid picture that Maugham creates of the lower section of the London society. The story flows freely with a lucid style of writing, arresting the reader's attention from the first pages to the last, and touches a chord in the reader's heart somewhere deep, all along the way. Definitely a work of class, more so, it was Maugham's first novel. The old adage 'morning shows the day' aptly describes what the writer achieves in this work and the masterpieces that follow (Of Human Bondage, The Moon and the Sixpence, The Razor's Edge, etc.).
Customer Review: Realism in the form of London's lower clases
This was Maugham's first published work which appeared 102 years ago. Maugham had just graduated from medical school almost the day the book was published and the modest success and good reviews convinced him to dedicate his life to a career of letters. The story takes place in the Lambeth section of London and is baised of his internship and residence at St. Thomas Hospital where he was required to call on the lower classes in the most dangerous section of town. Later in his life he joked about being a Midwife in his youth and delivering over a hundered babies for the poor. Maugham was influenced by "Sister Carrie" and "Mean Streets." and other books in the realistic tradition of the day. It is a rather short book and is written in the Cockney dialect of conversation like Dickens "Hard Times." It is well worth reading and a must for any Maugham fan.
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