The Narrow Corner

A tense potboiler set on an exotic Pacific island by one of the 20th century's bestselling authors

All this happened a good many years ago.

This is the disclaiming first chapter of this sea tale par excellence which evolved from a passage in The Moon and Sixpence that Maugham had written twelve years before.

On his way home from a remote Pacific island, Dr Saunders meets the treacherous Captain Nichols, who is caning Fred Blake from Australia, where he has committed murder. Sheltering from a storm at the island of Kanda, the trio are befriended by the good-natured Erik Christessen. But once they encounter the cool and beautiful Louise their story becomes one of love, jealousy, murder and suicide.

About The Author

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas’ Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer’s Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965.