Abstract：The great British William Somerset Maugham was fascinated by traveling around the world and visiting east Asia, especially China, during his lifetime. His wanderlust in the east and great concern with western civilization, as well as interrogation of human nature, cast some light of adventure fiction on his masterpiece The Painted Veil, which shares some sort of similarity on surface and deep value with traditional British adventure fictions, with some differences from them at the same time. The similarity on the surface value lies in that The Painted Veil borrows “Waste Island Setting”and “Exotic Place Description”from traditional adventure fictions. Meanwhile, the novel shares some similarities on deep value with adventure fictions: they share the same narrating mode and third-person narrating. However, the protagonists' special adventure motive and their worrying masculinity show a sharp contrast with traditional adventurers, thus disclosing the deviation of The Painted Veil from adventure fictions as well as its superiority upon popular novels. Thanks to its similarity on surface and deep value with traditional adventure fictions, and deviation from them, The Painted Veil is hailed as a perfect combination of popular fiction and literature canon. The analysis of The Painted Veil from the perspective of adventure fictions is conductive to exploring deeply this controversial but glamorous labyrinth-like masterpiece.

Keyword：The Painted Veil;adventure fictions;similarity on surface value;similarity on deep value;deviation;