Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Mrs Craddock cover art

Mrs Craddock

By: W. Somerset Maugham
Narrated by: Beth Chalmers
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £15.99

Buy Now for £15.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Cakes and Ale cover art
The Narrow Corner cover art
Far Eastern Tales cover art
The Constant Wife cover art
The Moon And Sixpence cover art
The Somerset Maugham BBC Radio Collection cover art
The Lady with the Dog cover art
Eight Cousins cover art
Under Western Eyes cover art
Someone at a Distance cover art
Jane Eyre cover art
The Thomas Hardy BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
Middlemarch cover art
North and South cover art
The Young Clementina cover art
Dynasty 1: The Founding cover art

Summary

Bertha Ley comes of age, inherits her father's money, and promptly marries a handsome, calm, and unimaginative man. Bertha is wildly in love with Edward and believes she can be happy playing the role of a dutiful wife in their country home. But, intelligent and sensual, she quickly becomes bored by her oppressively conventional life, and finds her love for her husband slipping away.

Originally rejected by publishers, Mrs. Craddock was first published only on condition that certain "shocking" passages were removed. It was 30 years before the full text could be published.

William Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author of the 1930s. Maugham was orphaned by the age of ten, but after an unhappy childhood, he flourished when he moved to London to study medicine as a young man, giving him plenty of inspiration for his literary ambitions. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth, sold out in a matter of weeks, prompting Maugham to leave medicine and embark on a 65-year career as a man of letters. By 1914 he was famous, with ten successful plays produced and ten novels published. In 1917, he was asked by the British Secret Intelligence Service (now MI6) to undertake a special mission in Russia; an experience which would go on to inspire Ashenden, a collection of short stories about a gentlemanly spy that influenced Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Maugham’s most famous works include Of Human Bondage, a semiautobiographical novel, The Moon and Sixpence, Cakes and Ale and The Razor’s Edge. His writing has inspired a string of over 35 film adaptations and has influenced many notable authors, including Anthony Burgess, George Orwell and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Public Domain (P)2012 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"He is a decade ahead of D.H. Lawrence in his portrayal of a woman with a passionate sexual attraction." (Washington Post)
"Maugham's best work as a novelist.... Ahead of its time." (New York Times)

What listeners say about Mrs Craddock

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

An absorbing picture of a marriage

What made the experience of listening to Mrs Craddock the most enjoyable?

What made this book enjoyable was the strong identification I felt with the main character, sharing in particular her claustrophobia and frustration in her marriage with her dreadful husband and his obdurate ignorance. It does of course reflect the mores of the time in terms of the power relationships between husbands and wives, but has a modern sensibility in relation to a woman's physical passions. In fact it is interesting to note that it some passages were censored for nearly 30 years.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Aunt Polly was in some ways my favourite character because of her acerbic wit, and perceptive insights into the actions and characters of others

Have you listened to any of Beth Chalmers’s other performances? How does this one compare?

This is the only one I listened to

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me quite angry at times, sharing in Bertha's frustration, but this helped engagement in the book.

Any additional comments?

The book is not unflawed. I would have liked a little more insight into the husband's motivations, and the character of Aunt Polly could have been developed further, but overall and enjoyable read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • MJ
  • 10-04-13

Hard going!

Maugham is writing here tediously long and repetitive passages of his version of the over-emotional and trite sentimentality of 'woman'. Completely without any depth, it has little or no story, poor character development, no humour and no justification except to illustrate that this author had a long way to go in his perception of character to achieve his later greatness.









Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not As Good As I Remembered

I read all WSM's books and short stories in my teens and early 20s and now I am gradually re-visiting those that are available here. I remembered Mrs C as one of my favourites - and it's still got its charms, but probably the passage of (quite a lot of!) time, has dulled it for me. But still I liked the old-fashioned story, and I still liked the ending a lot.

There are no characters to really warm to. Just as you think Mrs C is going to do something resolute or make a reasonable decision, she flunks it, and that does make you sort of not care much. And I absolutely detested Mr C by the 3rd hour - just as I did when I was 18. Nevertheless, it has a plot and an ending, and a lot of contemporary 'atmosphere' so it's a fairly pleasant 10 hours. .

Well read by a narrator I did not know before but who I think gets the characters right.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Not one of his better ones

Shallow storyline, not great narration, just not a great book
Tho am a huge fan of Somerset Maugham

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!