The Painted Veil

2021 Reprint of the 1925 Edition. First serialized in 1924 and published as a complete novel in 1925, The Painted Veil is the powerful novel of transgression and redemption by popular and prolific British author W. Somerset Maugham. The novel tells the story of the lovely and superficial Kitty Garstin and her unhappy marriage to Walter Fane, a quiet and honorable man. Kitty agrees to marry Walter not because she loves him, but because she fears being upstaged by her younger sister. Kitty travels to Tching-Yen [Hong Kong] with her new husband, where he is posted as a government scientist, and Kitty soon falls in love with her husband's colleague, the handsome and charming Charlie Townsend. Walter is not as clueless about her behavior as Kitty would like to believe, and eventually rejected by her selfish lover, he has her travel with him to mainland China to help during a dangerous cholera epidemic. The experience utterly transforms Kitty and she begins to take responsibility for her mistakes and understand her shortcomings. Beautiful and deeply affecting, The Painted Veil is a thought-provoking study of the ability of people to change, grow, and learn how to love deeply.