Liza of Lambeth

Liza of Lambeth, W. Somerset Maughams first novel, offers insight into the everyday lives of working class Londoners at the turn of the twentieth century. Liza Kemp is an eighteen-year-old girl working in a factory in the Lambeth slum along Londons Vere Street. As Liza enters into a misguided affair with an older, married man, Jim Blakeston, the novel reveals the tragedies and abuses suffered by those living in poverty. A mood of subdued acceptance of ones life conditions prevails in this novel, which sparked the literary career of one of Englands most successful authors of the twentieth century.