The Painted Veil: W. Somerset Maugham Make-believe and the Real Title of Maugham’s books, especially his novels, are always intriguing. A critic once poohpoohed one of his books saying it had the usual Maugham fare - a mishmash of old themes. His next story collection was titled, Mixture as Before. Title and epigraph of The Painted Veil come from P.B. Shelley’s poem Lift Not the Painted Veil. It is more profitable to read the complete poem – presuming one hasn’t read it yet – after they have finished the book. One can then variously interpret Maugham’s allusion to a painted veil. In the preface, Maugham recounts how he came to write the book. ‘I think that this is the only novel I have written in which I started from a story rather than from a character. It is difficult to explain the relation between character and plot. You cannot very well think of a character in the void; the moment you think of him, you think of him in some situation, doing something.' Idea for the s