William Somerset Maugham

1874-1965

William Somerset Maugham is one of the best-known English writers of the present day. He was not only an outstanding novelist, but also one of the most successful dramatists and short-story writers.

William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. His parents died when he was very little, and the boy was brought up by his uncle, a clergyman. William's father was an officialat the British Embassy in France and the boy spent his childhood in that country. In his later life he also lived for long periods there. After his parents' death the boy was taken away from French school which he had attended, and went daily for his lessons to the apartment of the English clergyman attached to the Embassy.

In his youth Maugham wanted to become a doctor, so he graduated from a medical college and worked at a hospital in Lambeth – one of the poorest districts of London. But in 1897, when he was only 23, Maugham wrote and published his first novel "Liza of Lambeth" and after that he went on producing books, one almost every year for more than sixty years.

Soon after the publication of his first novel Maugham went to Spain and then travelled to all parts of the world. He visited Russia, America, Africa, Asia and the Polynesian Islands, and wherever he was, he always sought material for his books. He was a keen observer of life and individuals. [50]

Somerset Maugham has written twenty-four plays, nineteen novels and a large number of short stories, in addition to travel works and an autobiography.

Few of his plays have stood the test of time. He is primarily a short-story writer and a novelist, the most mature period of Maugham's literary career began in 1915, when he published one of his most popular novels, "Of Human Bondage". It was started in 1905, abandoned for a time and then taken up again.

Though a good deal of the book is clearly based upon and inspired by Maugham's personal experiences, the novel should not be regarded as autobiographical.

The revolt of the individual against the accepted conventions of society is a theme which always fascinated Somerset Maugham. It inspired his next novel "The Moon and Sixpence" (1919), which makes use of some outstanding incidents in the life of the artist Paul Gauguin (though it cannot be regarded as his biography).

Other prominent works by Somerset Maugham are the novels: "Cakes and Ale" (1930), "Theatre" (1937) and the "Razor's Edge" (1944).

Somerset Maugham triumphed not only as a novelist but as a short-story writer as well. He produced some of the finest stories in modern English literature. They are usually very sincere, interesting, well-constructed and logically developed. No matter how many times you read them, they always give you the same feeling of freshness and excitement that you experienced on the first reading.

Many of Maugham's stories are set in foreign lands where the author was as easily at home as he was in his native England. They were inspired by his travel to China, Malaya, Borneo, Siam and many other countries.

In his literary works Maugham gave a realistic picture of the English bourgeois society - its egoism and false democracy, but he did not want to improve that society or human nature. He expected little or nothing of the people surrounding him.

During World War I Maugham was in British Intelligence Service. His work there is described in a collection of short stories under the title "Ashenden, or the British Agent", published in 1928. The action of one of the stories takes place in Petrograd where Maugham was sent as a secret agent just before the Great October Socialist Revolution. [51]

W. S. Maugham was always a very popular writer because he tried to satisfy his readers and all his books were sold well.