The Painted Veil

The Painted Veil is a 1925 novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. The title is a reference to Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1824 sonnet, which begins 'Lift not the painted veil which those who live / Call Life'.


The novel was first published in serialised form in five issues of Cosmopolitan (November 1924 – March 1925). Beginning in May 1925, it was serialised in the United Kingdom in eight parts in Nash's Magazine.