Recommendations
Books Like Of Human Bondage
What to read after Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (1915) is the great English novel of obsessive, self-destructive love — Philip Carey's clubfoot, his artistic ambitions, and his devastating entanglement with Mildred Rogers. One of the most honest accounts of emotional slavery in English fiction. These novels will find you in the same territory.
- 1Buy
The Razor's Edge
by W. Somerset Maugham
The natural companion to Of Human Bondage in the Maugham canon — Larry Darrell's spiritual quest after World War One, told by Maugham himself as narrator; where Philip Carey is enslaved by an obsessive love he cannot escape, Larry Darrell has achieved something like complete freedom from emotional attachment; both novels ask what a human life is for
- 2Buy
Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
Harry Haller, the 'Steppenwolf,' a middle-aged intellectual who cannot find a way to live in bourgeois society — the German parallel to Of Human Bondage; where Maugham gives you the bondage of obsessive love, Hesse gives you the bondage of self-alienation; both are novels about men who cannot make peace with their own natures
- 3Buy
David Copperfield
by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield's journey from orphaned childhood to mature novelist — the English bildungsroman that Of Human Bondage is most directly in dialogue with; where Maugham's novel is modern, naturalistic, and specifically about the damage that one relationship can do, Dickens' novel is expansive, episodic, and ultimately redemptive; Dickens was Maugham's favorite novelist and David Copperfield was his favorite novel
- 4Buy
Sons and Lovers
by D.H. Lawrence
Paul Morel growing up in a mining community in Nottinghamshire and the two women — Miriam and Clara — who cannot replace his mother — Lawrence and Maugham are exact contemporaries and both are writing autobiographical novels about young men who cannot escape their emotional entanglements; where Philip's bondage is to an unworthy woman, Paul's bondage is to his mother
- 5Buy
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
by James Joyce
Stephen Dedalus's Catholic upbringing and aesthetic awakening in Dublin — the modernist companion to Of Human Bondage in the European bildungsroman tradition; published the year after Maugham's novel, in 1916; where Maugham's novel is straightforward in technique, Joyce's is formally experimental; both are about a young man who must break free from his environment to become an artist
- 6Buy
Cakes and Ale
by W. Somerset Maugham
Ashenden's memories of the great Victorian novelist Edward Driffield and his first wife Rosie — Maugham's most polished and elegant novel; much shorter than Of Human Bondage and narrated with the detachment that Philip Carey never achieves; the best evidence of how Maugham's prose sounds when it is at its most efficient
- 7Buy
The Moon and Sixpence
by W. Somerset Maugham
Charles Strickland, a London stockbroker who abandons his family to become a painter in Paris and Tahiti — a roman à clef based on Paul Gauguin's life; where Of Human Bondage is about bondage to another person, The Moon and Sixpence is about bondage to a creative vision; both ask what a man owes to his own deepest nature versus what he owes to the people around him
- 8Buy
The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Stevens the butler, who gave his life to his profession and realizes too late what he sacrificed — the other great English novel of self-suppression in the Maugham tradition; where Philip Carey knows what he is doing to himself and cannot stop, Stevens does not quite allow himself to know; both are devastating accounts of emotional slavery, one to another person, one to an ideal of professionalism
More Of Human Bondage Resources
More Reading Recommendations
View all →Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.