"[1] Maugham, who had originally planned to call his novel Beauty from Ashes, finally settled on a title taken from a section of Spinoza's Ethics.

Now orphaned, he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle, Louisa and William Carey in Blackstable, a town in Kent.

Philip enjoys life in Germany, residing in a boarding house in Heidelberg with other foreigners.

He returns to his uncle's house in England to study medicine, his late father's field.

He struggles at medical school and meets Mildred, who works as a waitress in a tea shop.

Philip advises Mildred to give up that life but she declines and exits the plot with her fate unknown.

Unable to pay his rent, he wanders the streets for several days before the Athelnys take him in and find him a department store job, which he hates.

His talent for drawing is discovered and he receives a promotion and a raise in salary, but his time at the store is short-lived.

After his uncle William dies, Philip inherits enough money to allow him to finish his medical studies and he finally becomes a licensed physician.

In a moment of romantic abandon one evening they have sex, and when she thinks she is pregnant, Philip decides to marry Sally and accept Dr. South's offer, instead of travelling the world as he had planned.

They meet in the National Gallery where, though learning that it was a false alarm, Philip becomes engaged to Sally, concluding that "the simplest pattern – that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died – was likewise the most perfect".

He also defines good and bad categories based on the people's general beliefs, connecting it to their "emotions of pleasure or pain".

Maugham had a stammer (instead of a club foot), lost his parents early in life, and was sent to live with his aunt and uncle.

He possessed in his private collection works by four painters mentioned in the book: Pissarro, Sisley, Monet, and Renoir.