Edwardian Maugham
HESE plays of Somerset Maugham’s nonage which the NZBS has been giving us are not recognisably Maugham to a person knowing only his later writings or even his earlier novels. They. are not Maughamish in the way "Three Fat Women of Antibes" is, that sardonic short story I heard some months ago, in which Ngaio Marsh did a virtuoso performance, nor as that grimmer piece, The Lotus Eater, which has also been going the rounds this year. Penelope was, nevertheless, very accomplished and elegant post-Wilde, pre-Coward, in ways not merely chronological, The plot of a woman regaining her husband’s straying affections by ceasing to be the perfect wife could be found nowadays in any glossy woman’s magazine, though it might have been more original, and more daring, in 1912. But-‘"she says she hasn’t told it very well, but when George told her it was exquisite. Because George has a gift that way and when all is said and done it’s not so much what you say as how you say it, is it," to quote Ogden Nash, and if Penelope is not exactly exquisite it is certainly stylish, and Roy Leywood and his team gave it a stylish production,
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570920.2.42.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 945, 20 September 1957, Page 26
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201Edwardian Maugham New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 945, 20 September 1957, Page 26
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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