Maugham spent the winter months of 1919 travelling fifteen hundred miles up the Yangtze river. Always more interested in people than places, he noted down acute and finely crafted sketches of those he met on countless scraps of paper. In the resulting collection we encounter Western missionaries, army officers and company managers who are culturally out of their depth in the immensity of the Chinese civilisation. Maugham keenly observes, and gently ridicules, their dogged and oblivious persistence with the life they know.
- ISBN10 0099289504
- ISBN13 9780099289500
- Publish Date 6 July 2000 (first published December 1953)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 11 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Vintage Classics
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 160
- Language English