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The Letter (play)
''The Letter'' is a 1927 play by W. Somerset Maugham, dramatised from a short story that first appeared in his 1926 collection ''The Casuarina Tree''. The story was inspired by the real-life Ethel Proudlock case which involved the wife of the headmaster of Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur who was convicted in a murder trial after shooting dead a male friend in April 1911. She was eventually pardoned. Synopsis In the play, the action takes place in the house of a plantation owner, Robert Crosbie, and his wife Leslie in the then-British colony of Malaya, and later in the Chinese quarter of Singapore. With the husband away on business, the wife claims that she shot her husband's friend, Geoff Hammond, in self-defence, following an attempted rape; it is later revealed that Hammond was her lover, but had rejected her in favour of a native woman. The play focuses on the steps taken by the wife's lawyer to convince the court of her innocence, following the discovery of an incrimina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Casuarina Tree
''The Casuarina Tree'' is a collection of short stories set in the Federated Malay States during the 1920s by W. Somerset Maugham. It was first published by the UK publishing house, Heinemann, on September 2, 1926. The first American edition was published shortly afterwards on September 17, 1926 by George H. Doran. It was re-published by Collins in London under the title ''The Letter: Stories of Crime''. The book was published in French translation as ''Le Sortilège Malais'' (1928) and in Spanish as ''Extremo Oriente'' (1945). The stories are loosely based on Maugham's experiences traveling with his companion Gerald Haxton in the region for six months in 1921 and four months in 1925. He published a second set of short stories based on these travels, '' Ah King'', in 1933. Maugham was considered ''persona non grata'' among the expatriate British community in the Federated Malay States following the publication of ''The Casuarina Tree'' as he was felt to have betrayed confiden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
