THE ROUND DOZEN, A Short Story by Somerset Maugham

In the genteel, ghostly hush of a faded English seaside town, a respectable author stumbles upon two equally improbable characters: the St. Clairs, relics of a vanished Victorian age, and Mortimer Ellis, a disarmingly polite, threadbare gentleman with a peculiar past. One oozes propriety; the other, scandal—and between them drifts the wistful figure of Miss Porchester, a spinster with Grecian features and a quietly tragic backstory. But Elsom has a habit of hiding surprises beneath its prim exterior, and what begins as a restful convalescence soon turns into a wry social autopsy of English manners, moral hypocrisies, and matrimonial misadventures. By the end, Maugham peels back the curtain with devastating charm to reveal that love, deception, and longing know no age limit—and that even a notorious bigamist may have a philosophy worth hearing. The Round Dozen is equal parts satire, sympathy, and splendid irony.