The painted veil

Kitty Fane is the beautiful but shallow wife of Walter, a bacteriologist stationed in Hong Kong.

Unsatisfied by her marriage, she enters an affair with Charles Townsend, a man she finds charming, attractive and exciting.

But when Walter discovers her deception, he exacts a strange but terrible vengeance: Kitty must accompany him to his new posting in remote mainland China, where a cholera epidemic rages...

First published to a storm of protest, this is a classic story of a woman's spiritual awakening.