Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maughams semiautobiographical masterpiece unfolds in London and Paris at the end of the 19th century. The protagonist Philip Carey is a sensitive orphan whos burdened with a club foot and shunned by his schoolmates. Philips artistic aspirations fade with his realization of his own mediocrity and his hopeless infatuation with Mildred a vulgar waitress threatens to destroy whats left of his idealism.