The Painted Veil is a 1925 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by British author W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.-Childhood and education:...

. The title is taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...

's sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

 which begins "Lift not the painted veil which those who live / Call Life".

Biographer Richard Cordell notes that the book was influenced by Maugham's study of science and his work as a houseman

Pre-registration house officer

Pre-registration house officer , often known as a houseman or house officer, was until 2005 the only job open to medical graduates in the United Kingdom who had just passed their final examinations at medical school and had received their medical degrees.Newly-qualified doctors are only allowed...

 at St Thomas' Hospital

St Thomas' Hospital

St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS hospital in London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It has provided health care freely or under charitable auspices since the 12th century and was originally located in Southwark.St Thomas' Hospital is accessible...

. In the Preface to his book, Maugham tells how originally the main characters were called Lane not Fane but a couple of that name in Hong Kong successfully sued the magazine publishers of the initial serialised version for libel and won £250. To avoid similar problems after A. G. M. Fletcher, the then Assistant Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong, also threatened legal action, the name of the colony was changed to Tching-Yen. Later editions reverted to Hong Kong but the name Fane was kept for all editions.

The novel was first published in serialised form in five issues of Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (magazine)

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

(November 1924 – March 1925). Beginning in May 1925, it was serialised in the United Kingdom in eight parts in Nash's Magazine.

Plot summary

Shallow and lost, Kitty marries the intellectual and passionate Walter Fane, a bacteriologist on leave from the Far East, who is madly in love with her. She does this purely so that she can be married before her younger sister, Doris, and to get away from her mother. They move to Hong Kong where, bored by the stifling climate and social mores, Kitty quickly starts an affair with the "perfect" Charles Townsend, the handsome assistant colonial secretary.

When Walter finds out about their affair, he gives Kitty an ultimatum. She must either accompany him to the Chinese interior to deal with a cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

 epidemic, risking death, or he will divorce her, causing a scandal, unless Townsend will agree to marry her.

Kitty goes to see Townsend who betrays her badly, after previous declarations of love, by refusing to divorce his wife to marry her. Their conversation, when she realizes he doesn't really love her, takes up several chapters as Townsend's true nature is slowly revealed to Kitty. She is surprised to find when she returns home that Walter has already had her clothes packed—he knew Townsend would let her down.
Heartbroken and disillusioned, Kitty decides she has no option but to accompany Walter to the cholera-infested mainland of China.

At first resentful and bitter, Kitty softens as she meets Waddington, a cynical British man living locally with a Chinese mistress and some French nuns who are nursing the sick in the cholera epidemic. Seeing the respect with which Walter is held she also begins to understand what a good man he is. She begins to help the nuns by working in the nursery with the orphaned children. She is humbled by the unshakeable faith of the Mother Superior and the nuns working there.

Kitty discovers that she is pregnant and strongly suspects that Charles Townsend is the father. She cannot bring herself to deceive her husband about the paternity and tells him, but cannot answer his question as to whether he is the father by a simple "yes".

Soon after this Walter dies in the epidemic and Kitty returns to Hong Kong where she is met by Mrs. Townsend, Charles' wife who convinces Kitty to come to stay with them - as Kitty is now mistakenly regarded as a heroine who voluntarily and faithfully followed her husband into great danger. At the Townsend house, much against her intentions, she is seduced by Charles and makes love with him one more time despite realising he is vain and shallow, much as she once was. She is disgusted with herself and tells him what she thinks of him. She returns to the UK, en route finding her rather domineering mother has died. Her father, an only moderately successful barrister, is appointed Chief Justice of a minor British colony in the Caribbean and she persuades her father to allow her to accompany him there where she intends to dedicate her life to her father and to ensuring her child is brought up to avoid the mistakes she had made.

Film adaptations

The novel has been adapted for the screen three times:

• The Painted Veil
  The Painted Veil (1934 film)
  The Painted Veil is a 1934 drama film made by MGM. It was directed by Ryszard Bolesławski and produced by Hunt Stromberg from a screenplay by John Meehan, Salka Viertel, and Edith Fitzgerald, adapted from the 1925 W. Somerset Maugham novel The Painted Veil. The music score was by Herbert Stothart,...
  
  (1937)
• The Seventh Sin
  The Seventh Sin
  The Seventh Sin is a 1957 film based on the 1925 novel The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham.It was adapted for the screen by Karl Tunberg and directed by Ronald Neame...
  
  (1957)
• The Painted Veil
  The Painted Veil (2006 film)
  The Painted Veil is a 2006 Chinese-American drama film directed by John Curran. The screenplay by Ron Nyswaner is based on the 1925 novel of the same title by W. Somerset Maugham...
  
  (2006)

Publication history

• Maugham, W. Somerset. The Painted Veil. (1925 first edition) London: Heinemann
• Maugham, W. Somerset. The Painted Veil.(1925 first edition) New York: First American Trade Edition, George H. Doran
• Maugham, W. Somerset. The Painted Veil. (2002 reprint) Replica Books ISBN 978-0735101739