AH KING—Somerset Maugham—Doubleday, Doran ($2.50). Somerset Maugham is the fiction editor’s Santa Claus. His stones are intelligent but not highbrow, well-made but not wooden, readable but ...

Maugham found their souls more interesting than their bodily ills. He drew upon them for the characters of Liza, of Liza’s mother, of Jim and Tom. The first book contained only a shadow of the ...