Cakes and Ale

A witty and sharply observant novel of literary ambition, reputation, and desire, Cakes and Ale is one of W. Somerset Maugham's finest and most enduring works. The story is narrated by William Ashenden, a novelist who is drawn into the efforts of Alroy Kear, a fashionable and self-serving writer commissioned to prepare the official biography of the celebrated Edward Driffield. Kear wants to polish Driffield into a respectable literary monument, but Ashenden remembers the past more clearly-and far less conveniently. At the center of those memories is Rosie Driffield, Edward's warm, generous, unconventional first wife, whose freedom of spirit scandalized polite society while leaving a lasting impression on everyone who knew her. First published in 1930, Cakes and Ale is Maugham at his most elegant and incisive: a comedy of manners, a satire of literary vanity, and a humane portrait of the gap between public reputation and private truth.