HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

Ashenden, or, The British Agent (1928)

by W. Somerset Maugham

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1,0173320,145 (3.73)79
A celebrated writer by the time war broke out in 1914, Maugham has the perfect cover for living in Switzerlan d. Multilingual and knowledgeable about many european countries, he was despatched by the Secret Service to Lucerne - under the guise of completing a play . An assignment whose danger and drama appealed both to his sense of romance and the ridiculous. The stories collected in ASHENDEN are rooted in Maugham's own experiences as an agent, reflecting the ruthlessness and brutality of espionage, its intrigue and treachery, as well as absurdity.… (more)
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 79 mentions

English (31)  Spanish (1)  Catalan (1)  All languages (33)
Showing 1-5 of 31 (next | show all)
Just a straight classic of early spy genre writing. So good. ( )
  BooksForDinner | Mar 8, 2024 |
The Agent Runner in WWI
Review of the Arni Books Kindle eBook edition (April 6, 2023) of the original Heinemann hardcover (1927)

Ashenden's official existence was as orderly and monotonous as a city clerk's. He saw his spies at stated intervals and paid them their wages; when he could get hold of a new one he engaged him, gave him his instructions and sent him off to Germany;


I became intrigued by W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) while reading Tan Twan Eng's historical fiction The House of Doors (2023) where the author is shown in 1921 Penang, Malaya gathering real life stories which were later fictionalized into the short story collection The Casuarina Tree (1926). I didn't want to jump into the latter until I had finished Eng's book [RTC] but I have had Ashenden on my TBR for the longest time, so I read it first.

Ashenden (1927) is of interest as it is quite the early precedent for the 1960s & later cynical spy novels of John le Carré, Len Deighton and others. Ashenden is a fictionalized version of Maugham himself, who did actually work for the British Secret Service in Switzerland and Russia during the First World War. The writer Ashenden is recruited as an agent runner by R, an otherwise nameless chief in British Intelligence. As mentioned in the above excerpt he is mostly just acting as a handler, paying off the actual spies and relaying messages. The assignments all end in failure with misunderstandings, botched assassinations, and bungled attempts at manipulation.

See full dustcover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d9/Ashenden%E2%80%94first_edition_co...
Dustcover of the 1927 original Heinemann hardcover. Image sourced from Wikipedia and may be found at the following website: http://www.facsimiledustjackets.com/cgi-bin/fdj455/2315.html?id=mVxIWhnP., Fair use, Link.

I read one of the public domain Kindle eBook editions of which there are many. The book is in the public domain in Canada (perhaps not everywhere else) and can be read at Project Gutenberg or Faded Page. My edition has the original 16 chapters of the 1927 original. Some later editions group chapters together which are part of the same mission, resulting in 7 stories.

It may have been a bit of self-promotion, but Maugham later said that after the book was published Winston Churchill accused the author of contravening the Official Secrets Act, resulting in Maugham destroying 17 unpublished stories which presumably would have been a sequel.

Trivia and Link
Read an Analysis of Somerset Maugham's Ashenden (Note: Contains spoilers) by Nasrullah Mambrol, Literariness, May 8, 2022. ( )
1 vote alanteder | Nov 7, 2023 |
Quite an interesting collection of spy stories, all centered around Ashenden, openly based on Maugham himself who was a WWI spy. The stories flow into each other but could be read individually. Many unlikeable characters, colonial BS, racism, and antisemitism make some of the stories distasteful. Yet, overall I’m glad I read this. I’m intrigued by Maugham for some reason and I haven’t figured out why yet. ( )
  psalva | Aug 4, 2023 |
Because this is a WW1 spy story, I have shelved it under thriller-suspense but it is not actually either thrilling nor suspenseful. Ashenden, like Maugham himself, is a writer drafted into the Secret Service but his job is more one of observation than of danger or action. As Ashenden says:

"Being no more than a tiny rivet in a vast and complicated machine, he never had the advantage of seeing a completed action. He was concerned with the beginning or the end of it, perhaps, or with some incident in the middle, but what his own doings led to he had seldom a chance of discovering."

Thus the book is more a series of connected short stories than a single novel. Maugham's wonderful prose is a joy to read as usual. ( )
  leslie.98 | Jun 27, 2023 |
Ó, Britannia, melyek valának fegyvereid, melyekkel egykoron igába hajtottad a világot? Hűvös ész, fanyar humor és kifogástalan társasági viselkedés a koktélpartikon. Ashendennek mindez megadatott, és még valamivel több is: a káprázatos emberismeret. Ami tulajdonképpen szakmai követelmény nála, hiszen civilben író a szentem, de kitör az első világháború, a haza pedig szolgálni hívja, berukkol tehát hírszerzőnek*. Hisz ki lenne jobb hírszerző, mint egy író? Mind a ketten információkkal és félinformációkkal (valósággal és fantáziával) dolgoznak, csak amíg egyikük elegyíti a kettőt, a másikuk szétválasztaná. Szóval Ashenden a kémek Paradicsomába, Svájcba kerül (meg később máshová is), és keveri-kavarja, miközben ilyen-olyan figurákkal hozza össze a sors. Tőrőlmetszett kémnovellák, így, akinek szíve központi bugyrában székel a cselszövevények iránti vágy, jó eséllyel szeretni fogja őket. Ugyanakkor Maugham erőssége nem a csűrés-csavarás, hanem a jellemrajz és az erkölcsi konfliktusok ábrázolása, úgyhogy kapunk egészen káprázatosan felskiccelt, komplex szereplőket meg feloldhatatlan morális dilemmákat is, mindezt egy finom, elegáns atmoszférába ágyazva. Alapvetően ez az atmoszféra az, amitől végig jó volt nekem a kötetben: a békebeli európaiság leheletét érezni benne, amire elviselhetetlen súllyal nehezedik a háttérben zajló világégés, az a világégés, ami aztán pozdorjává is zúzta a fenn említett békebeliséget. Úgy is felfoghatjuk tehát az írásokat, mint a Pax Britannica hattyúdalát, amit (talán) alá is húz, hogy az utolsó novella egy tüdőszanatóriumban játszódik.

Bírtam. Csak a legeslegutolsó bekezdésben Maugham – merőben indokolatlanul – ne vágta volna hozzám a giccsgránátot.

* Azt, hogy a hírszerzés afféle lelkes amatőrök vadászterülete, Maugham nem az ujjából szopta – valóban, még a második világháború idején is exhibicionisták, csodabogarak, kalandorok, egyszóval egy válogatott cirkuszi menazséria alkotta a kémek és kettős ügynökök derékhadát. Egy olyan furcsa és hihetetlen figura felbukkanása, mint a Csupasz Mexikói, egyáltalán nem irreális a regény terében – a brit titkosszolgálatok alkalmaztak nála groteszkebb figurákat is. ( )
1 vote Kuszma | Jul 2, 2022 |
Showing 1-5 of 31 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors (24 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Maugham, W. Somersetprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Birdsall, DerekCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Peccinotti, HarriCover photographsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
To Gerald Kelly, R. A.
First words
It was not till the beginning of September that Ashenden, a writer by profession, who had been abroad at the outbreak of the war, managed to get back to England.
Quotations
Death so often chooses its moments without consideration.
. . . man has always found it easier to sacrifice his life than to learn the multiplication table.
Ashenden sighed, for the water was no longer quite so hot; he could not reach the tap with his hand nor could he turn it with his toes (as every properly regulated tap should turn) and if he got up enough to add more hot water he might just as well get out altogether. On the other hand he could not pull out the plug with his foot in order to empty the bath and so force himself to get out, nor could he find in himself the will-power to step out of it like a man. He had often heard people tell him that he possessed character and he reflected that people judge hastily in the affairs of life because they judge on insufficient evidence: they had never seen him in a hot, but diminishingly hot, bath.
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Information from the Hungarian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

A celebrated writer by the time war broke out in 1914, Maugham has the perfect cover for living in Switzerlan d. Multilingual and knowledgeable about many european countries, he was despatched by the Secret Service to Lucerne - under the guise of completing a play . An assignment whose danger and drama appealed both to his sense of romance and the ridiculous. The stories collected in ASHENDEN are rooted in Maugham's own experiences as an agent, reflecting the ruthlessness and brutality of espionage, its intrigue and treachery, as well as absurdity.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.73)
0.5
1 2
1.5
2 5
2.5 6
3 36
3.5 23
4 60
4.5 3
5 27

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,187,397 books! | Top bar: Always visible