At the age of 23, Charlie Mason is endowed with good looks, good manners, and a happy disposition. Following three years at Cambridge and one in his father's business, he is looking forward to a jaunt in Paris with Simon Fenimore, his oldest friend. Yet Paris is not what Charlie expects—and in just a few days his young eyes are opened to the ugly drama of its underworld. First published before the outbreak of war in 1939, Somerset Maugham's purpose in Christmas Holiday was to warn the complacent, insular British middle-class of the immense upheavals taking place on the Continent.