Eye of the Cake

The End Of Dinner, 1913  by Jules Alexandre Grun

Stu mentions Cakes and Ale, I follow the link and discover that, among other things, it is a book written by W. Somerset Maughm. I've heard of Maughm, I've probably read some of his books but it's been so long I couldn't tell you what they were. But he has a fixed place in my mental firmament, along with the likes of Faulkner and that other guy whom I can't quite remember. It will come to me. Michener, that's the one.
    Anyway, I'm always on the lookout for something new to read, so I start in on the sample pages on Amazon. It starts with a discussion by a writer of another writer, not nearly so talented, but much more successful who wrote a bestseller titled Eye of the Needle. Hey! Wait a minute! I've heard of that, it was a movie with that tall lanky guy from Mash (Donald Sutherland) playing an Irish-Nazi spy, or some such. The movie came from a book, but this book was written by Ken Follett, not by Roy. What's going on here?
    Well, Cakes and Ale was written in 1930 and Ken Follett wrote his Eye of the Needle in 1978, so W. isn't talking about Ken's book. Whether there was a previous book with that title only Google knows, and he (she? it?) isn't telling.

A note about the picture. It took me a while to find something that fit. I came across a cropped version of this painting on  a book cover. It took me a while to track it down. Most of the versions I found were very yellow and most unpleasant. Wikiart was no help. Finally, just asking Google Images for "dinner party painting" uncovered this one. I also found one that was similar but the 'tone' was all wrong, so I dismissed it. Then I looked again and I realized that in gross characteristics, it was the same picture. But the devil is in the details, and in the cheap, hand-painted knock-off, which is what it was, they hadn't worried overmuch about the details.