The Trembling of a Leaf

The Trembling of a Leaf is a collection of short stories. The stories draw on his own experiences of travel in the Pacific. These stories are centred around Europeans and white Americans who live in the Pacific islands. Many of the characters display racist attitudes and use offensively racist language towards Polynesian people as well as other minorities such as those of Chinese and Japanese origin. Maugham is neither approving nor disapproving in the way he portrays these attitudes. They were part of the world of a century ago.