Edward Craddock is a thoroughly good man. He may lack Bertha's education, but he is unfailingly good-humoured, handsome, placid and popular with everyone. It is hardly surprising that Bertha adores him. But expending all one's passion, all one's spirit, on a man who is so undemonstrative, so unimaginative, can be very trying, as Bertha soon discovers. In this penetrating study of an unequal marriage, Maugham explores the nature of love and happiness and finds that the two rarely coincide.
