Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham

"W. Somerset Maugham''s semiautobiographical masterpiece unfolds in London and Paris at the end of the 19th century. The protagonist, Philip Carey, is a sensitive orphan who''s burdened with a club foot and shunned by his schoolmates. Philip''s artistic aspirations fade with his realization of his own mediocrity, and his hopeless infatuation with Mildred, a vulgar waitress, threatens to destroy what''s left of his idealism."