While the main title of this book relates directly to the principal theme, the subtitle indicates a social phenomenon that interested W. Somerset Maugham, represented by the narrator, Willie Ashenden (Maugham's favorite name for his narrators, and the tide character of a later novel), in this very autobiographical novel. In brief, much of the text is devoted to showing that social snobbery is not only unjust but simply misguided and wrong.

The class system has always been stronger in England than in the United States, but the phenomenon persists in most of the world (albeit in various forms). The "skeleton" in the subtitle is Rosie Gann, a character who is derided and almost despised because of her humble origins (a poor family and the post of barmaid at a local tavern, the Railway Arms). Rosie, whose marriage to the writer Edward Driffield helps to set many...