The Bishop's Apron: A Study in the Origins of a Great Family

In this early satirical gem, Somerset Maugham turns his gimlet eye on the English upper classes with devastating precision. Canon Theodore Spratte is certain of two things: that he deserves to be the next Bishop of Sheffield, and that everyone around him knows it. The son of a Lord Chancellor, Spratte has spent a lifetime constructing an unshakable belief in his own importance, so unshakable, in fact, that he's genuinely astonished to discover his own family doesn't share his conviction. As he maneuvers for the bishopric, his daughter Winnie drifts toward a young socialist named Bertram Railing, while his brother, the flamboyant Lord Spratte, provides sardonic counterpoint to Theodore's pomposity. Maugham dissects the absurdity of social ambition and the comfortable delusions that sustain it, wrapping his sharp observations in the guise of a comedy. The result is a biting portrait of a man whose self-regard is so complete it becomes almost touching. For readers who delight in English social comedy, from Austen to Waugh, this is Maugham at his most gleefully merciless.