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Title: Of Human Bondage

Author: W. Somerset Maugham

Narrator: Steven Crossley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 25 hrs and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-10-11

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 145 votes

Genres: Classics, British Literature

Publisher's Summary:

One of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, W. Somerset Maugham's masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, gives a harrowing depiction of unrequited love. Philip Carey, a sensitive orphan born with a clubfoot, finds himself in desperate need of passion and inspiration. He abandons his studies to travel, first to Heidelberg and then to Paris, where he nurses ambitions of becoming a great artist.

Philip's youthful idealism erodes, however, as he comes face-to-face with his own mediocrity and lack of impact on the world. After returning to London to study medicine, he becomes wildly infatuated with Mildred, a vulgar, tawdry waitress, and begins a doomed love affair that will change the course of his life.

First published in 1915, the semi-autobiographical Of Human Bondage combines the values left over from the Victorian era with the prevailing irony and despair of the early 20th century. Unsentimental yet bursting with deep feeling, Of Human Bondage remains Maugham's most complete statement of the importance of physical and spiritual liberty, a theme that resounds more loudly than ever today.

Members Reviews:

You won't want it to end!

Simple in writing but it draws you in and makes you relate and remember experiences, feelings and situations in yourself and friends that are similar to the best and worst characters in the story. It wraps up a little quicker then I expected after such a long audio but it's probably the best book I've heard to date and has had me thinking and rethinking situations, events in my own life. It was a fantastic listen!

Good Story of a Wounded Man

This is an excellent Bildungsroman, if you don't mind a central figure who is more buffeted by the ideas and actions of others that the active agent in his own life.

The reading is good, except for the voice adopted for the Mildred character. That was like something out of a much more comic performance.

Frustrating

Main character provokes very little sympathy, and narration is not suited to audiobooks (as other have commented, narrator faded off dramatically at the end of sentences).

Reader is terrible

Would you try another book from W. Somerset Maugham and/or Steven Crossley?

I loved the Razor's Edge and the reader there was wonderful but I will NEVER read another book narrated by Crossley. He varies his volume extremely and drops very low and soft at the end of some words, so much so that I cannot follow his rendition. I had to ask for a credit and get the other reader.

One of the best stories

I cannot believe that the novel was published in 1915. Humans haven't evolved very much in the last 100 years as i could relate so well to the emotions expressed in the book!