Liza of Lambeth (1897) was W. Somerset Maugham's first novel, which he wrote while working as a doctor at a hospital in Lambeth[1], then a working class district of London. It depicts the short life and tragic death of Liza Kemp, an 18-year-old factory worker who lives together with her aging mother in Vere Street (obviously fictional) off Westminster Bridge Road (real) in Lambeth. All in all, it gives the reader an interesting insight into the everyday lives of working class Londoners at the turn of the century.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

A musical based - albeit loosely - on the novel was written by Willie Rushton and Berny Stringle, with music by Cliff Adams. It opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in June 1976, and ran for 110 performances. It was produced by Ben Arbeid, directed by Berny Stringle, musically directed by John Burrows, and starred Angela Richards in the title role, Patricia Hayes, Ron Pember, Michael Robbins and Eric Shilling, among others.

The musical style is predominantly music hall, but the show includes a parody of Gilbert and Sullivan, a church choir arrangement with some completely incongruous lyrics (A Little Bit On The Side), and some touching ballads.

The Tart With A Heart of Gold was cut from the West End production, and is also missing from the original London cast recording (Thames THA 100), despite it describing the entire raison d'être of one of the main female characters.

The musical has not been officially published for amateur performance, but it is occasionally licensed for amateurs. The world amateur premiere was performed at the Erith Playhouse in Erith, Kent, in June 1977, and was attended by members of the London production team. The rights to this musical are currently held by Thames Music in London.

William Somerset Maugham, CH (January 25, 1874 – December 16, 1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer (the name is pronounced 'mawn'). He was one of the most popular authors of his era, and reputedly the highest paid of his profession during the 1930s.

(From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Download Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham

PDF format, 259KB, 105Pages.

Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18202-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them.

Cover Design: Jim Manis
Copyright © 2007 The Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university.

1

IT WAS THE FIRST SATURDAY afternoon in August; it had been broiling hot all day, with a cloudless sky, and the sun had been beating down on the houses, so that the top rooms were like ovens; but now with the approach of evening it was cooler, and everyone in Vere Street was out of doors.

Vere street, Lambeth, is a short, straight street leading out of the Westminster Bridge Road; it has forty houses on one side and forty houses on the other, and these eighty houses are very much more like one another than ever peas are like peas, or young ladies like young ladies. They are newish, three-storied buildings of dingy grey brick with slate roofs, and they are perfectly flat, without a bowwindow or even a projecting cornice or window-sill to break the straightness of the line from one end of the street to the other.

This Saturday afternoon the street was full of life; no traffic came down Vere Street, and the cemented space between the pavements was given up to children. Several games of cricket were being played by wildly excited boys, using coats for wickets, an old tennis-ball or a bundle of rags tied together for a ball, and, generally, an old broom-stick for bat. The wicket was so large and the bat so small that the man in was always getting bowled, when heated quarrels would arise, the batter absolutely refusing to go out and the bowler absolutely insisting on going in. The girls were more peaceable; they were chiefly employed in skipping, and only abused one another mildly when the rope was not properly turned or the skipper did not jump sufficiently high.

Worst off of all were the very young children, for there had been no rain for weeks, and the street was as dry and clean as a covered court, and, in the lack of mud to wallow in, they sat about the road, disconsolate as poets. The number of babies was prodigious; they sprawled about everywhere, on the pavement, round the doors, and about their mothers’ skirts. The grown-ups were gathered round the open doors; there were usually two women squatting on the doorstep, and two or three more seated on either side on chairs; they were invariably nursing babies, and most of them showed clear signs that the present object of the maternal care would be soon ousted by a new arrival.

Men were less numerous but such as there were leant against the walls, smoking, or sat on the sills of the ground-floor windows. It was the dead season in Vere Street as much as in Belgravia, and really if it had not been for babies just come or just about to come, and an opportune murder in a neighbouring doss-house, there would have been nothing whatever to talk about.

As it was, the little groups talked quietly, discussing the atrocity or the merits of the local midwives, comparing the circumstances of their various confinements.

‘You’ll be ‘avin’ your little trouble soon, eh, Polly?’ asked one good lady of another.
‘Oh, I reckon I’ve got another two months ter go yet,’ answered Polly.
‘Well,’ said a third. ‘I wouldn’t ‘ave thought you’d go so long by the look of yer!’
‘I ‘ope you’ll have it easier this time, my dear,’ said a very stout old person, a woman of great importance.
‘She said she wasn’t goin’ to ‘ave no more, when the last one come.’ This remark came from Polly’s husband.

‘Ah,’ said the stout old lady, who was in the business, and boasted vast experience. ‘That’s wot they all says; but, Lor’ bless yer, they don’t mean it.’ ...

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