The skeptical romancer

W. Somerset Maugham was one of the seminal writers of the twentieth century, and his travel writing has long been considered among his finest work. Now, acclaimed travel writer Pico Iyer maps out a masterful tour of these vivid, evocative pieces that are collected here for the first time. Maugham worked as a secret agent in Russia, published novels in London, staged plays in New York, and traveled throughout Europe, Asia, India, and the United States, chronicling his travels, wherever he went, with exceptional insight. Beginning with In the Land of the Blessed Virgin and culminating in A Partial View, Iyer selects vignettes of Maugham's razor-sharp prose that track his transformation from a boyish traveler in Spain to a worldly man of letters. This is Maugham at his most keenly observant, direct, and powerful.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Romance, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.