Collected Short Stories Books in Order

Volume 1 of the collected short stories assembles early and middle period work, including many Malayan and South Seas tales. It is an ideal place to see how Maugham handles first person narration, tight plotting and the slow reveal of character under pressure.

This second volume continues the chronological sweep, gathering stories that move between English provincial towns, European resorts and farther flung colonies. The range of settings is wide, but the focus remains on sharp, sometimes merciless insight into how people justify their desires.

Volume 3 collects later stories in which Maugham, now an older man, often uses narrators looking back on youth, war and lost chances. The tone can be wistful or dryly amused, and the pieces revisit familiar ground with a greater emphasis on memory and the passing of time.

The final volume in the collected series gathers remaining stories, including some rarer pieces. It rounds out the picture of Maugham as a storyteller who, across dozens of settings and situations, returned again and again to the puzzle of why people act against their own best interests and what, if anything, they learn afterward.