Since most of Maugham's fiction, certainly the major novels, is autobiographical, almost any of the principal works could be said to be related in technique, style, point of view, and theme to Cakes and Ale. For instance, he never presents a critical view of an unpretentious female character, especially a lowborn one; he tends to reserve his pejorative views for upper-class, haughty women. His dependence on first person point of view in The Razor's Edge (1944; see separate entry) and The Moon and Sixpence (1919; see separate entry) and the third person limited in Of Human Bondage (1915; see separate entry) gives all these works, as it does Cakes and Ale, a focus and coherence that would be much more difficult to achieve with other points of view. In a sense, one might assert that all of Maugham's central writings are of a piece, formed by the same mind...