Christmas Holiday (novel)
{{Short description|1939 novel}}
{{infobox book|
| name =Christmas Holiday
| title_orig =
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| image =File:Christmas Holiday (novel).jpg
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| author = Somerset Maugham
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| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
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| genre = Drama
| publisher = Heinemann
| release_date = 1939
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| media_type = Print
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Christmas Holiday is a novel by the British writer Somerset Maugham, first published in 1939 by Heinemann. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War a naïve young Englishman travels to Paris to broaden his mind. There he meets a White Russian émigré Lydia, now working as a prostitute. She tells him both of the death of her father during the Russian Revolution and her subsequent marriage in Paris to a man who then murdered his own friend. Despite knowing of his guilt she secretly sends money to him on the prison island in French Guiana because she loves him.Calder p.181-82 The novel was reissued as a Bantam paperback in December 1955 under a new title, Stranger in Paris.
Film adaptation
In 1944 it was adapted into the American film of the same title often classified as a film noir, directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly.Goble p.313 Schwartz p. 153 While the original story takes place in pre-war Europe, the adaptation shifts the setting to wartime New Orleans in Louisiana.
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- Calder, Robin. Somerset Maugham and the Cinema. University of Wisconsin Press, 2024.
- Goble, Alan. The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter, 1999.
- Schwartz, Ronald. Houses of Noir: Dark Visions from Thirteen Film Studios. McFarland, 2013.
External links
- {{FadedPage|id=20161219|name=Christmas Holiday}}
{{W. Somerset Maugham}}
Category:British novels adapted into films
Category:Heinemann (publisher) books
Category:Novels by W. Somerset Maugham
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