Liza of Lambeth is W. Somerset Maugham’s first foray into authorship, well the first one published anyway. He was a medical student at the time and was able to use those experiences in the story.

The year is around the middle of Victoria’s reign and the setting is Lambeth, a working class area of London and it begins with the inhabitants of Vere Street enjoying themselves on a hot afternoon in August, with the children playing cricket and the women sitting at their doorsteps gossiping. It’s an area where a lot of the women are at various stages of pregnancy and the men are too handy with their fists, but that’s all seen as being normal.

Eliza is young and single, and living with her mother who apparently suffers from ill health, but in reality she’s an alcoholic. Liza is the life and soul of the street though, she loves clothes and dancing and is very popular, especially with Tom who is besotted with her, but Tom is too quiet and boring for Liza’s liking. She’s got her eyes on Jim who is twice her age and has just moved into the street with his wife and five children, soon to be six. It isn’t going to end well.

I really enjoyed this one although it was quite predictable, but after all it was his first book. It’s quite grim in parts, however I’ve no doubt that the setting is very authentic with domestic violence hard drinking and early deaths being more likely than not. Maugham must have seen plenty of evidence of both when he was working as a student doctor in a London hospital.