The Skeptical Romancer : Selected Travel Writing

"Maugham is a great artist. . . . A genius." --Theodore Dreiser

"An expert craftsman. . . . His style is sharp, quick, subdued, casual." --The New York Times

"Maugham has given infinite pleasure and left us a splendour of writing which will remain for as long as the written English word is permitted to exist." --The Daily Telegraph

"The modern writer who has influenced me most is Somerset Maugham." --George Orwell

"Maugham remains the consummate craftsman. . . . [His prose is] so compact, so economical, so closely motivated, so skillfully written, that it rivets attention from the first page to last." --The Saturday Review of Literature

"It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. . . . He was always so entirely there." --Gore Vidal