About the book

The Painted Veil is a 1925 novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. The title is taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet which begins "Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life." The biographer Richard Cordell notes that the book was influenced by Maugham's study of science and his work as a houseman at St Thomas' Hospital. In the Preface to his book, Maugham tells how originally the main characters were called Lane not Fane but a couple of that name in Hong Kong successfully sued the magazine publishers of the initial serialised version for libel and won 250. To avoid similar problems after A. G. M. Fletcher, the then Assistant Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong, also threatened legal action, the name of the colony was changed to Tching-Yen.[2] Later editions reverted to Hong Kong but the name Fane was kept for all editions. The novel was first published in serialised form in five issues of Cosmopolitan (November 1924 - March 1925). Beginning in May 1925, it was serialised in the United Kingdom in eight parts in Nash's Magazine Somerset Maugham uses a third-person - limited, point of view in this story, where Kitty is the Focal character. Kitty Garstin, a very pretty upper-middle class debutante, squanders her early youth amusing herself at cotillions and social events - during which her domineering mother attempts to arrange a "brilliant match" for her. By age 25, Kitty has flirted with - and declined the marriage proposals of - dozens of suitors. Her mother, convinced that her eldest daughter has "missed her market," urges Kitty to settle for the rather "odd" Walter Fane, a bacteriologist and M.D., who is madly in love with Kitty. In a panic that her much younger - and less attractive - sister, Doris, will upstage her by marrying first, Kitty consents to Walter's ardent marriage proposition with the words, "I suppose so." Shortly before Doris's much grander wedding, Kitty and Walter depart as newlyweds to his post in Hong Kong."