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  • Published: 1 February 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099478324
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $30.00

Up At The Villa




'The modern writer who has influenced me the most' George Orwell

Mary Panton walls up her desires in a beautiful villa high up in the hills above Florence, as she calmly contemplates her disastrous marriage. But a single act of compassion begins a nightmare of violence that shatters her serenity. She turns for help to the notorious Rowley Flint, and through him comes to realise that to deny love, with all its passions and risks, is to deny life itself.

  • Published: 1 February 2005
  • ISBN: 9780099478324
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $30.00

About the author

W Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas’ Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer’s Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

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Praise for Up At The Villa

A writer of great dedication

Graham Greene

One of my favourite writers

Gabriel Garcia Marquez