Somerset Maugham is the acknowledged master of the short story, and his full range is represented in this collection. In acclaimed stories such as 'Rain', 'The Letter', 'The Vessel of Wrath' and 'The Alien Corn', Maugham illustrates his wry perception of human weakness and his genius for evoking compelling drama and an acute sense of time and place.

As a companion set to its existing surveys of British and American poetry and literature, the British Library is releasing a 3CD collection devoted to Irish poets and writers. This set includes some of the most important historic recordings of Irish literary figures to have survived in the archives. As before, the majority of the recordings come from BBC broadcasts. Around a dozen major poets and writers will be featured, including James Joyce and Bernard Shaw. The set will be the first to include the complete surviving BBC broadcasts of W B Yeats. Most of the recordings are previously unpublished.