I've always been a fan of Maugham's short stories, but this may not be his best selection.
Anyway, his stories still shine a light on colonial life, and, especially, the colonials, in the early 20th century. In several of the stories in this volume, that light shows pretentious uptight folk, desperately trying to show a false face to the world. Sad. ( )

Elegantly constructed stories of life in which one culture imposes its values on people it rules, full of the author judging the characters, the characters judging each other, and, occasionally, themselves. All presented without much concept that the whole lot of them were probably being judged a damned nuisance by those there before them, endogenous or unacknowledged fellow colonialists like the Chinese. The racism of the characters and implied by the author is very wearing. Maugham does describe every male character he views - sometimes the viewpoint character escapes, but the women are mostly less specifically described - and as if female fragility was a bedrock reality. ( )

Six stories set in Malaya (or elsewhere but about white people who have been living in Malaya) that explore class, race, infidelity and even murder.

"Before the Party" - Millicent, a young widow with a child, returns to England and shares with her family the shocking details of her husband's death.
"P.&O." - Mrs. Hamlin is on her way back to England where she left her husband after discovering his affair. She meets a Mr. Pryce who develops terrible hiccups on the voyage.
"The Outstation" - The only two white men in the area find that they greatly dislike each other.
"The Force of Circumstances" - Doris comes to Malaya with her husband and learns that he had a Malayan mistress prior to their marriage.
"The Yellow Streak" - a visit that Izzart and Campion make takes a dark turn when a great wave threatens their boat and everyone on it.
"The Letter" - a lawyer defending a woman accused of murder but expected to be acquitted finds out that there's more to her story.

The stories are bookended by an introduction "The Casuarina Tree" explaining the meaning of the title and a postscript begging readers to understand that none of the characters are based on real people, though hinting that "The Yellow Streak" was based on an experience of Maugham's own. You do have to wonder how much of that postscript is true since "The Letter" (which figures directly in The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng) was inspired by the case of Ethel Proudlock and was not so very changed that those familiar with the story would have any doubt where the idea came from.

As for the stories themselves, I enjoyed Maugham's facility with language and the way in which he'd give the characters' opinions while his own (or the narrator's) was a bit more enigmatic, or even tongue in cheek. For example, in "Before the Party", the reader may be horrified by the story told by Millicent, but her family is only upset because of the potential social implications involved. "The Yellow Streak" is probably my favorite of the bunch, where Izzart is so afraid that someone might figure out his racial origins that he is attempts to deflect suspicion where there generally isn't any, sometimes saying awful racist things himself (indeed, the n-word present in most of the stories will grate on the modern ear). ( )

This is an excellent collection of short stories published around a century ago and all based on the lives and exploits of the white colonial community living in Malaya at the time, their relations with each other and with the native communities. The final story, The Letter, was the inspiration for a major plot thread in Tan Twan Eng's 2023 novel House of Doors, which I read immediately before this. I love Maugham's crisp writing style and straightforward approach to telling a story. Unlike most short story collections which generally contain at least one or two weaker stories, I thought all six stories here were really good. ( )

Murders, Witchcraft, Cowards and Blackmail
Review of the e-artnow Kindle eBook (June 10, 2022) of the Heinemann hardcover original (1926).

[25/30 average = 4.17 rounded down for a Library Thing 4]
After reading the 2023 Booker longlisted The House of Doors by Malaysian writer Tan Twan Eng, I just had to read some of author W. Somerset Maugham’s short fiction for which he was shown gathering material in Eng’s historical fiction novel. I snapped up a cheap public domain eBook but discovered it was missing the Introduction and Postscript of the original, which I then had to seek out online (see Trivia & Links below).

The story synopses below include only set-ups and do not reveal endings, so I have not spoiler blocked them:

i. Introduction: The Casuarina Tree The author introduces the collection and explains the title.

1. Before the Party ***** As the Skinner family prepares to go out to a party, they hear the shocking details of the death of daughter Millicent’s husband in Borneo, where he was a colonial administrator.

2. P. & O. **** Mrs. Hamlyn meets a Mr. Pryce on a Peninsular & Oriental Ship on which they are both travelling back to England from Malaya. Mr. Pryce develops seemingly incurable hiccups during the voyage.

3. The Outstation *** A resident colonial officer Mr. Warburton comes into conflict with his assistant Mr. Burton.

4. The Force of Circumstance ***** Doris marries Guy in England and returns with him to Malaya where he is a colonial administrator. She is shocked to discover that Guy had a previous relationship.

5. The Yellow Streak *** A guide named Izzart is assigned to assist Campion, an engineer hired to investigate possible mining resources in the fictional country Sembulu. They are put in mortal danger by a tidal bore on the river they are travelling on.

6. The Letter ***** A lawyer is defending Leslie Crosbie in the shooting death of her neighbour Geoffrey Hammond in Malaya. During the preparation of the defense case an apparently incriminating letter is discovered to exist. This is a fictionalized version of the real-life Ethel Proudlock case from 1911. The short story was adapted into a theatrical play The Letter: A Play in Three Acts (1927) which was further adapted into films, television and opera. A listing of the many adaptations can be found at the play’s Wikipedia page.

Postscript The author explains that he has fictionalized locations and persons in the book:

With the exception of Singapore, a city too busy with its own concerns to bother itself with trifles, imaginary names have been chosen for the places in which the action of these stories is supposed to be conducted.
…
Facts are but a canvas on which the artist draws a significant pattern. I venture therefore to claim that the persons of these stories are imaginary, but since an incident in one of them, The Yellow Streak, was suggested by a misadventure of my own, I wish more particularly to state that no reference is intended to either of my companions on that hazardous occasion.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ec/Casuarina-Tree-FE.jpg
The cover of the 1926 original Heinemann edition. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and it was a terrific addendum to reading The House of Doors where the book itself makes an appearance after it is published and then read by the fictional characters.

Trivia and Links
The completely unrelated cover art for this Kindle edition made me curious to search for its origin. It is an apparently free image used for other book covers such as Jolie Damman’s Bait Me: Dark Mafia Mega Bundle (2022).

The Casuarina Tree is in the Public Domain but there is currently (as of December 2023) no copy at the main ProjectGutenberg.org, even though there are many other Maugham books there.

Project Gutenberg Canada has Maugham's Complete Short Stories, where you can seek out the 6 above stories (which are not printed in order) without the Introduction and Postscript of the original.

The complete text including the Introduction and Postscript is available at the Internet Archive. ( )