Reading Order
Of Human Bondage Reading Order
W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (1915) is a standalone novel — there is no series and no sequel. Philip Carey, a sensitive boy with a club foot who grows up to be a medical student, falls obsessively in love with a woman who treats him badly. One of the great English bildungsromans and Maugham's most personal novel.
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Of Human Bondage
Complete Of Human Bondage Book List
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Of Human Bondage
W. Somerset Maugham·1915·Standalone novel — Philip Carey's childhood, education, and obsessive relationship with Mildred Rogers; approximately 650 pages; Maugham called it an autobiographical novel, with Philip's club foot corresponding to Maugham's own stammer; the title is taken from the fourth book of Spinoza's Ethics, 'Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions' - Buy
The Razor's Edge
OptionalW. Somerset Maugham·1944·Larry Darrell's search for spiritual meaning after World War One — Maugham's most philosophical novel and a very different kind of protagonist from Philip Carey: where Philip is enslaved by his emotions, Larry has achieved something like detachment; the natural companion to Of Human Bondage in the Maugham canon - Buy
Cakes and Ale
OptionalW. Somerset Maugham·1930·Ashenden's memories of the great Victorian novelist Edward Driffield and his first wife Rosie — Maugham's most polished and elegant novel and a roman à clef (Driffield is based partly on Thomas Hardy); much shorter than Of Human Bondage and the best introduction to Maugham's narrative style at its most efficient
Of Human Bondage — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Of Human Bondage autobiographical?
Of Human Bondage is autobiographical in its emotional truth, though Maugham changed the details. Philip Carey's club foot corresponds to Maugham's own stammer, which caused him similar humiliation and social anxiety as a child. Philip's early life — the death of his parents, being raised by an aunt and uncle vicar, his schooling, his time in Heidelberg, his artistic ambitions in Paris, his eventual decision to study medicine — tracks closely with Maugham's own biography. The relationship with Mildred is believed to correspond with an obsessive relationship Maugham had with a man in his own life, with the gender changed. Maugham described the novel as a 'very imperfect attempt' to process the first 30 years of his life.
Why is it called 'Of Human Bondage'?
The title comes from the fourth book of Baruch Spinoza's Ethics, which Maugham had been reading during the period he was planning the novel. Spinoza's book 'Of Human Bondage, or the Strength of the Emotions' argues that humans are enslaved by their passions — that we believe we act from reason but are actually driven by emotions we do not understand or control. This is precisely Philip Carey's situation: he knows, intellectually, that Mildred is not worth his love, that she is selfish and common and does not deserve him — and he cannot stop himself. The title frames the novel as a study in the particular kind of bondage that is an obsessive, self-destructive love.
How does Of Human Bondage end?
Of Human Bondage ends with Philip achieving a kind of freedom — he recognizes that the meaning of life is not some grand philosophical truth but simply what he makes of it himself; that life has no pattern except the one the liver imposes; and that his desire for security and simple happiness is not a failure of ambition but a legitimate goal. He proposes to Sally Athelny, with whom he has been friends for years, and she accepts. The ending is deliberately undramatic: Philip's liberation is not a triumph but a quiet recognition, and his choice of Sally is a choice of warmth and ordinariness over the self-destructive glamour of Mildred.
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