The story is a simple tragic tale of adultery and redemption. When her husband finds out, he forces her to come with him to a city in rural China that's being ravaged by cholera. When the two of them go off to Hong Kong, she escapes the tedium of her marriage by falling victim (a very willing victim, as she admits herself) to the seductions of the local lothario. So Kitty winds up marrying a bacteriologist, a decent, boring, unexceptional man who adores her, and whom she finds barely tolerable. Well, be fair, this was the early 20th century marriage market in British society.

Unfortunately, Kitty was young and vain and stubborn and turned down the many proposals she received, no one meeting her standards, until suddenly she was past her shelf life at the ripe old age of 25.

Kitty Fane is a shallow, materialistic daughter of a shallow, materialistic mother who henpecked Kitty's father, always seeking to improve their lot in life, and when that failed, pushed Kitty and her more fortunate younger sister into marrying well. This short novel &mdash: which is very much a work of its time, and not the worse for it &mdash: happens to hit one of my favorite themes, being a redemption story for a character who starts out thoroughly unlikable and with few redeeming qualities. Somerset Maugham raved about by literati, but never read any of his works before. Though too late for her marriage, she has learned humility, independence, and how to love. She takes up work with children at a convent, but when her husband dies, she is forced to return to England to her father, her one remaining relative, to raise her unborn child. Stripped of the British society of her youth and overwhelmed by the desolation around her, she is compelled by her awakening conscience to reassess her life. When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to a remote region of China ravaged by a cholera epidemic. Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, it is the story of the beautiful but shallow young Kitty Fane. First published in 1925, The Painted Veil is an affirmation of the human capacity to grow, change, and forgive.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham