One of the most admired and widely read authors of this century This first volume of Somerset Maugham's collected plays includes Sheppey, his last and best comedy of a Cockney barber who determines to give his sweepstake winnings to the poor; The Sacred Flame gives an unusual note of noir-ish suspense to a moving drama of protective maternal love; The Circle, widely regarded as Maugham's masterpiece, deals wittily with the dilemma of a young woman intent on leaving her pompous husband; in The Constant Wife, an abrasive war-between-the-sexes comedy, his heroine is an early feminist who gains financial and emotional independence from her husband; Our Betters - whose London opening was delayed through fear of lawsuits - exposes the amoral society of an English aristocracy funded by the American heiresses who have bought their way into it.