OOOO this is so wonderful. The narrator is perfect. I love all these stories but this is in a class of its own. Thank you from the bottom of my almost 85 year old heart . :)
I love this story. It's such a perfect picture of a fortune hunting man who will marry just about anything with a dowry, and I'm absolutely sure the woman he proposed to first had seen right through him and found the perfect way of dealing with him. Somerset Maugham is always wonderful, but in this story's depiction of older women there's a little touch of Saki - he was so good about aunts!
In almost any upper class family!!! Perhaps because they have so little chaos & distress causing disorder & distraction? Making them look for interactive entertainment! Even bad attention is attention nonetheless!!!😢 When asked why God allows bad things to happen, my minister said "Without the bad, how would you know the good?" Those people didn't/ don't know strife, so they don't even realize that they have it so good😢!!! Yet regular people around them are saying "If I had what they have..." Like Joanie Mitchell sang, 🗯 🎶 "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone"🎶
Sperb narration and music. The late authorvwould have smiked ss much as I did listening to the audio well past midnight. I had lived >10 years in a lovely village in Kent ( Oasthouse/ small cottages/leaden windows and suoerbly looked after cottage gardens) not that far from Swale and wondered why we never considered visiting the vicarage..perhaps! Reminded me of some ladies who weren't that different from the likes of Mrs Proudfoot / Strong
God in heaven do I love this song 🎵 thank you for including it again I’m so grateful about it 🙏 may I please ask if you could again navigate me to the channel page you’d uploaded the entire song to? Thank you in advance. Respectfully, Grace 🙏
Neuralsufer--you have ignighted an absolute fire for Somerset Maugham in me. I can not get enough. His characters are in my brain now. BTW - your illustrations are spot on--who does them?Thank you.
@@reenbrown2706 Simon Stanhope, he has a channel of his own, reading classical literature. Great channel, if you like that sort of thing❤! I'm Subscribed to it & listen while going to sleep😊!
@@reenbrown2706You are referring to Simon Stanhope, I presume, and no, it is not his voice although it sounds like him. I asked him on his channel (Bite Sized Audio Classics) if this is his voice. He stated he is in no way associated with neuralsurfer, nor had he heard of the channel until I drew his attention to it. He is looking into to the hijacking of his voice by this channel. If you would like to see our conversation, go to Bite Sized Audio Classics & click on Simon’s reading of The Peace Offering by Saki. It is the first posting in the comments after Mr Stanhope’s introductory post. I have recently heard an AI voice on neuralsurfer’s channel that sounds suspiciously like Tony Walker who reads his own & other authors’ works on his own channel called Classic Ghost Stories. If I hear more of this, I will be asking Tony Walker if he has given permission to neuralsurfer to use his voice. If you go to neuralsurfer’s Home page, you will see that indeed these are AI voices & illustrations.
*Spoilers** This is the first of S.M.'s short stories. It was first published in Punch, 1900. It was a dry, one could say 'droll,' view of marriage in a small English village. "The Vicar of Swale," had lashings of Victorian morality thrown in for more British humor. The Rev. Robert Branscombe was a forty-year-old Oxford graduate who wanted to progress in his career. Therefore, he understood the need to marry the right wife, one with money. There were only two candidates because of class-based snobbery. Lady Proudfoot, who was always sticking her foot into other people's business, was determined it should be her friend, Mrs. Edith Strong. Although, "perilously near forty years of age," Proudfoot saw that in a positive light, Edith won't give him fifteen children. Everything about Mrs. Strong is strong, especially her teeth it would seem. Six feet tall, she had been the sporty type, but now was big as an elephant. (So, we'll understand Strong's showy teeth as a reference to an elephant's tusks.) Yet an elephant with L1,500 per annum. Branscombe assures her he'll do his duty by her, but Strong thinks that his virtually saying, 'don't worry about sex, I'll service the cow,' to not be sufficiently romantic. The other woman was the twenty-nine-year-old Jane Simpson, well-named, for she was a plain-Jane and a simpering-Simp(son). Simpering in her affection for the vicar and desperate to be married, therefore, undesirable. So much so that with a deceased father and a fortune of L100,000 in her own name, no one wanted her. The story ends with Mrs. Strong managing to palm-off Branscombe onto the simp, Jane Simpson. Maugham does throw in that in a class-based society, the gap between the haves and the have-nots was wide. So wide that the best the have-nots could reasonably hope for was that their children would die young of diphtheria or typhoid. He hints that that was their Christmas present from God "in winter."
I love Mrs. Strong - she had him twisted round her little finger LOL 🌷🌱 What a complete idiot!! I hope she calls him Robert for the rest of his life. :)
No worse than Waugh ,Woolf or a dozen others. Why pick on him.? His " snobbery " as you term it didn't prevent a real " artist " understanding of Human Nature : irrespective of the class they belonged to. Stick to watching Ken Loach films ? Full of Saint like Working Class salt of the Earth types....
This is lovely. Both the story and narration. One thing. Could you read slightly slower? Just a little. Sometimes I can't tell when one sentence ends and another begins.
OOOO this is so wonderful. The narrator is perfect. I love all these stories but this is in a class of its own. Thank you from the bottom of my almost 85 year old heart
. :)
Glad you enjoyed it!
Amazingly accurate picture of English society! It's hilariously funny, but also painfully true!
I love this story. It's such a perfect picture of a fortune hunting man who will marry just about anything with a dowry, and I'm absolutely sure the woman he proposed to first had seen right through him and found the perfect way of dealing with him. Somerset Maugham is always wonderful, but in this story's depiction of older women there's a little touch of Saki - he was so good about aunts!
To say that I love these stories is an understatement.
😂Sommerset is an incredible, and timeless storyteller!
While working, listening to the short story.
Just the right time / length of the story for one go!!!!!!!
These English gentle folk are masters at sounding genteel while doing terrible things to each other.
I feel like you can still see that in the royal family
In almost any upper class family!!! Perhaps because they have so little chaos & distress causing disorder & distraction? Making them look for interactive entertainment! Even bad attention is attention nonetheless!!!😢
When asked why God allows bad things to happen, my minister said "Without the bad, how would you know the good?" Those people didn't/ don't know strife, so they don't even realize that they have it so good😢!!! Yet regular people around them are saying "If I had what they have..."
Like Joanie Mitchell sang, 🗯 🎶 "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone"🎶
@marshawargo: one of my favorite songs. And I imagine you are right.
❤❤❤
Exactly. Evil to the core.
These stories are new to me and quite good. Thankyou for posting.
A wonderfully tongue in cheek introduction.
Magical lovely 💕 song after story. Memory cobblestone road 🎵
I loved this story with its funny outcome.
Thanks
I love the song at the end.❤
I, too, love the ending song and would love to hear more of that lovely voice but no credit is given. Anyone know who it is?
Ah - link to an upload of the song appears further down in the comments, however still no credit for the artist.
Lovely song at the end. I tried to SHAZAM it, but could not identify it. What's the title and artist?
She knew that if she told him that he would show his true self. She said it to test him .
Equisitely filapidated😂😂😂😂😂😂❤❤❤❤❤
She knew he was out for the money snd she enjoys her independence anyway 😅
Was that it? What about his uncles estate?
Sperb narration and music. The late authorvwould have smiked ss much as I did listening to the audio well past midnight. I had lived >10 years in a lovely village in Kent ( Oasthouse/ small cottages/leaden windows and suoerbly looked after cottage gardens) not that far from Swale and wondered why we never considered visiting the vicarage..perhaps! Reminded me of some ladies who weren't that different from the likes of Mrs Proudfoot / Strong
Thank you for this story 😊
well, only could listen to end song twice to assure myself it is the saddest song I have heare
possibly heard in my long life..O Sommy he is the man!
SM’s range is wonderful!
God in heaven do I love this song 🎵 thank you for including it again I’m so grateful about it 🙏 may I please ask if you could again navigate me to the channel page you’d uploaded the entire song to? Thank you in advance.
Respectfully, Grace 🙏
Great story. Thank you.
What fun!
Classic!
Neuralsufer--you have ignighted an absolute fire for Somerset Maugham in me. I can not get enough. His characters are in my brain now. BTW - your illustrations are spot on--who does them?Thank you.
AI generated illustrations, as well as AI narration.
Not AI narration. The voice brlongs to Simon something. He has his own channel called Bitesize Audio I think @fiddlersthree8463
@@reenbrown2706
Simon Stanhope, he has a channel of his own, reading classical literature. Great channel, if you like that sort of thing❤! I'm Subscribed to it & listen while going to sleep😊!
@reenbrown2706 This is not Simon Stanhope.
@@reenbrown2706You are referring to Simon Stanhope, I presume, and no, it is not his voice although it sounds like him. I asked him on his channel (Bite Sized Audio Classics) if this is his voice. He stated he is in no way associated with neuralsurfer, nor had he heard of the channel until I drew his attention to it. He is looking into to the hijacking of his voice by this channel.
If you would like to see our conversation, go to Bite Sized Audio Classics & click on Simon’s reading of The Peace Offering by Saki. It is the first posting in the comments after Mr Stanhope’s introductory post.
I have recently heard an AI voice on neuralsurfer’s channel that sounds suspiciously like Tony Walker who reads his own & other authors’ works on his own channel called Classic Ghost Stories. If I hear more of this, I will be asking Tony Walker if he has given permission to neuralsurfer to use his voice.
If you go to neuralsurfer’s Home page, you will see that indeed these are AI voices & illustrations.
The stories would be wonderful to listen to at night as one is awake in bed. However, the ads burst in and make it impossible to enjoy.
I listen every night. These stories are free. If you are so worried...pay‼️
I have TH-cam premium. It’s worth it. About 12.99 a month and you can listen all day!
@@kauffrau6764It is worth it, unfortunately
Thank you.
*Spoilers**
This is the first of S.M.'s short stories. It was first published in Punch, 1900. It was a dry, one could say 'droll,' view of marriage in a small English village. "The Vicar of Swale," had lashings of Victorian morality thrown in for more British humor. The Rev. Robert Branscombe was a forty-year-old Oxford graduate who wanted to progress in his career. Therefore, he understood the need to marry the right wife, one with money. There were only two candidates because of class-based snobbery. Lady Proudfoot, who was always sticking her foot into other people's business, was determined it should be her friend, Mrs. Edith Strong. Although, "perilously near forty years of age," Proudfoot saw that in a positive light, Edith won't give him fifteen children. Everything about Mrs. Strong is strong, especially her teeth it would seem. Six feet tall, she had been the sporty type, but now was big as an elephant. (So, we'll understand Strong's showy teeth as a reference to an elephant's tusks.) Yet an elephant with L1,500 per annum. Branscombe assures her he'll do his duty by her, but Strong thinks that his virtually saying, 'don't worry about sex, I'll service the cow,' to not be sufficiently romantic. The other woman was the twenty-nine-year-old Jane Simpson, well-named, for she was a plain-Jane and a simpering-Simp(son). Simpering in her affection for the vicar and desperate to be married, therefore, undesirable. So much so that with a deceased father and a fortune of L100,000 in her own name, no one wanted her. The story ends with Mrs. Strong managing to palm-off Branscombe onto the simp, Jane Simpson.
Maugham does throw in that in a class-based society, the gap between the haves and the have-nots was wide. So wide that the best the have-nots could reasonably hope for was that their children would die young of diphtheria or typhoid. He hints that that was their Christmas present from God "in winter."
Name of the song, please?
Hope there's no end to his stories
Cranford was never like this .
I love Mrs. Strong - she had him twisted round her little finger LOL 🌷🌱 What a complete idiot!! I hope she calls him Robert for the rest of his life. :)
So, inhabitants are not considered sinners, but they can sin with impunity. Disgusting town.
What is the name of the song, please?
An insufferable snob in real life, Maugham was able to feign an air of plebeian brotherhood in his writing to perfection, nonetheless 😂
….. because of rather than in spite of .
No worse than Waugh ,Woolf or a dozen others. Why pick on him.? His " snobbery " as you term it didn't prevent a real " artist "
understanding of Human Nature : irrespective of the class they belonged to.
Stick to watching Ken Loach films ? Full of
Saint like Working Class salt of the Earth types....
This is lovely. Both the story and narration. One thing. Could you read slightly slower? Just a little. Sometimes I can't tell when one sentence ends and another begins.
In “settings” you can chose playback speed and make the story slower.
@@arneashbee7514 Ta. Will do 😃
The narration is AI. Apparently.
@@cheryljones9339 Wow. It would explain a couple of other things too. But that's damn good for AI!
@@annagettings4675 Scary isn't it.😬
I'd love the name of the song and artist at the end of this story.
th-cam.com/video/vEKGYX-bgVg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=IWvBFkxSWNlUAXaS
👏👏👏👏🙏💕
👍⭐🌹
Women in the ad sprout faster than their face hair.
Why did he ask ma strong to marry him if he wanted to marry me Simpson? Was it the money?
Crazy huh?
‘card’?! 😂 ‘cad’ …..