The narrow corner

Three men voyaging together in a small vessel--an exiled doctor, a disreputable sea captain, and a young man fleeing from justice--are driven to take shelter on a small island in the Malay Archipelago. Their lives are soon shattered by a strange, exotic girl of English parentage, but oriental in her mystery. The story contains humor and wit, exact and incisive observation of character and an ironical philosophy that mark this tale as another Maugham classic. This tale of the sea came from a passage in The Moon and Sixpence, which Maugham had written twelve years earlier. The villainous Captain Nichols brings his passenger Fred Blake, a fugitive from the law, to the remote island of Kanda after a violent storm - and what starts as a thrilling tale of sea adventure becomes a tragic tale of love as Fred and the beautiful Louise bring sorrow on her island home.