Maugham Sommerset Italian

Liza of Lambeth (1897) was W. Somerset Maugham's first novel, which he wrote while working as a doctor at a hospital in Lambeth[1], then a working class district of London. It depicts the short life and tragic death of Liza Kemp, an 18-year-old factory worker who lives together with her aging mother in Vere Street (obviously fictional) off Westminster Bridge Road (real) in Lambeth. All in all, it gives the reader an interesting insight into the everyday lives of working class Londoners at the turn of the century.

Set in the bohemian cafe society of Paris at the turn of the nineteenth century, Maugham's exploration of hypnotism and the occult was inspired by the sinister black magician Aleister Crowley. At the start of this compulsive gothic horror story, Arthur and his beautiful, innocent fiancee Margaret look forward to an idyllic life together, until they encounter the mesmerising and repulsive Oliver Haddo...

Un décor quasi convenzionale (la Firenze frequentata dalla colonia inglese, vista però da una distanza molto più ravvicinata del solito), una donna bellissima e a suo modo perduta, due uomini molto diversi che se la contendono, e al centro di tutto uno scabroso fatto di sangue. Ma per combinarli a dovere ci voleva la mano di Somerset Maugham.