Before the Party
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W. Somerset Maugham's "Before the Party" is a novelette first published in the December 1922 edition of "Nash's Magazine." After the death of her husband, an alcoholic colonial administrator in Borneo, Millicent returns to England to live with her parents and sister. Did Millicent's husband die of a fever, as Millicent claims, or was his throat cut? And if the latter, was it suicide or homicide? Sample passage: Mrs. Skinner had thought it very peculiar that her daughter should have no photographs of Harold in her room. Indeed she had spoken of it once, but Millicent had made no reply. Millicent had been strangely silent since she came back from Borneo, and had not encouraged the sympathy Mrs. Skinner would have been so willing to show her. She seemed unwilling to speak of her great loss. Sorrow took people in different ways. Her husband had said the best thing was to leave her alone. The thought of him turned her ideas to the party they were going to.
W. Somerset Maugham
W(illiam) Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) British playwright, novelist, and short-story writer, who in 1908 had four plays running simultaneously in the West End, a record at that time. The plays were Lady Frederick at the Court Theatre, Jack Straw at the Vaudeville Theatre, Mrs Dot at the Comedy Theatre, and The Explorer at the Lyric Theatre. His work was noted for its clear style, solid construction, and shrewd perception of human nature. Between 1898 and 1933 Maugham wrote 27 plays; the first to be produced was Man of Honour in 1904. His successes included Our Betters (1917), a satire on US social-climbers, Home and Beauty (1919), The Circle (1921), East of Suez (1922), The Constant Wife (1926), and the anti-war play For Services Rendered (1932). After the comparative failure of Sheppey, directed by Gielgud in 1933, Maugham decided that he had lost touch with public taste and gave up writing for the theatre. Several of his short stories have been adapted by others for the stage, notably Miss Thompson, dramatized as Rain (1922) by John Colton and Clemence Randolph.
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