Product Description

It is the end of the 19th century and Victoria's reign is coming to an end. It is also the end of an era, but no one knows. The landed gentry, so soon to lose their power, are the last to suspect.

Bertha Ley is mistress of Court Ley, a great spread of land. She marries Edward Craddock, a man beneath her station, but quite the essence of new order. A gentleman farmer, he is steady and a doer who turns Court Ley into an efficient farm. But Bertha wants passion and ardor: she gets reality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64878 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780143105121
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Customer Reviews

A Neglected Masterwork
W. Somerset Maugham has long existed somewhat on the periphery of literary and critical respectability: "a first-rate second-rater," someone once called him. But the more I read Maugham the more I become convinced that this is a snobbish appraisal, derived perhaps from his extraordinary popular success (if it's popular, it can't be good) and, later, from revelations regarding his homosexuality along with some unpleasant personal details related by various biographers. But none of this should get in the way of a reader seeking out Maugham's best work---"Of Human Bondage," certainly, and the much-less-known "Mrs. Craddock."

"Mrs. Craddock" is a stunningly powerful novel of one woman's compromises with the realities of love. Reminiscent on the one hand of Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," and on the other of Kate Chopin's "The Awakening," this novel has a vitality and brilliance of characterization all its own. Bertha, the heroine, is superbly rendered: a woman who is unable to understand until too late the nature of her emotional folly, a victim of her own self-imposed romantic delusions. Edward, her husband, is equally compelling: a fundamentally good man who has simply, in essence, married the wrong woman. Watching these two mismatched souls attempting to co-exist is engrossing, painful, and exhilarating. The story is solidly written in the usual Maugham plain style, and is just as relevant today as it must have been the year it was published.

This "lost" Maugham novel---ignored even by many Maugham admirers---deserves a wider readership. Those interested in Maugham's fiction of this period, or in turn-of-the-century novels centered on women, owe it to themselves to try this unjustly neglected masterwork.

A Maugham Masterpiece
The heroine of this book, starts off as a very confident, quite headstrong girl, pursuing a man beneath her station. For when it comes down to it, Bertha is quite the idealist in love. As the book explains she really has only one way to love, and that's all consumingly. The book delves into her heartbreak once the honeymoon is over, and it becomes clear that her husband is one of those very sensible people, for whom love is quite on the mundane side, instead of the fireworks Bertha imagines, it's a little more like clockwork. She, and her marriage are compared to the rules adherant to livestock in her husbands eyes.

And to exacerbate her isolation is the fact that the town and it's townspeople, see in Edward a good, solid, contributing citizen, a paragon of strength, virtues, and good attributes, and congratulate her on her choice of spouse at every opportunity. She goes through stages, as her bitterness and resentment over Edwards' unchangeable personality as he refuses to give way from his sensible lifestyle in order to accommodate her in the attention that she craves. Of such a different temperment is he, that he is completely unable to understand her needs or feelings, and feels it's for her better good for him to remain that way.

The book takes a turn to compare Edward's non-passionate nature, to an admiring younger cousin who falls in love with her with the same heat and emotion as she has, providing just a small glimpse into a world where her feelings are matched. A pervading sensibility, eventually puts her feelings in check. But that experience lowers some of her expectations, and she comes to regard her marriage with an indifference which is the quality that makes it bearable for her.

The story of an unhappy marriage in the rural countryside doesn't strike one as that compelling of a plot-line, but the way in which it's written is so filled with poignant character observations, you can hardly read three pages in this book without finding a sentence that's deeply accurate and deftly serves up truths on human relationships and different temperments. And it's that introspective quality that makes this book amazing to read.

Maugham's as usual
I'm a huge fan of the work of W. Somerset Maugham and I buy every book from him that catches my eye. Mrs. Craddock was not exception. The story of love and disappointment endured by Bertha Craddock is an odissey on how the women perceptions change when they find that they're not loved in the way they expected. Me, as a male, couldn't help but feel sympathy for her and get angry at the way Bertha's husband snubs her need for love. The end is marvelous and this makes the novel a must read for everyone who's ever been in love. (I guess everyone)