W. Somerset Maugham's semiautobiographical masterpiece unfolds in London and Paris at the end of the 19th century. The protagonist, Philip Carey, is a sensitive orphan who's burdened with a club foot and shunned by his schoolmates. Philip's artistic aspirations fade with his realization of his own mediocrity, and his hopeless infatuation with Mildred, a vulgar waitress, threatens to destroy what's left of his idealism.