Jack Straw

In W. S. Maugham's Jack Straw, a dazzling farce of manners and mistaken identity, a fashionable hotel and an over-staged country house become battlegrounds for ambition, vanity, and desire. Jack Straw himself is the irresistible center of the comedy: a mysterious, adaptable man who moves with ease through every level of society, unsettling aristocrats, social climbers, and the newly rich alike. Around him swirl Ambrose Holland, Lady Wanley, the Parker-Jennings family, and a parade of guests obsessed with rank, money, and appearances. The Parker-Jennings, risen from modest beginnings, strain to impress the county with extravagant hospitality, imported music, and carefully chosen company, only to expose their own insecurity and snobbery. At the same time, Jack's sharp wit and effortless charm turn humiliation into opportunity, especially when he finds himself drawn to Ethel Jennings and pulled into a risky deception. As the supposed Archduke Sebastian of Pomerania is revealed to be a hotel waiter in borrowed dignity, Maugham delivers a sparkling satire of class pretension, romantic confusion, and the absurd bargains people make to seem important. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.