75 Copy quote. If you like W. Somerset Maugham, you might also like: E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence, and John Fowles. [n 12] There is some suggestion that his known homosexuality may have militated against his receiving the higher honour.[119]. [97] During a visit to India in 1938 he found his interest prompted less by the British expatriates than by Indian philosophers and ascetics: "As soon as the Maharajas realized that I didn't want to go on tiger hunts but that I was interested in seeing poets and philosophers they were very helpful. While there he wrote a farce, Home and Beauty, which was presented at the Playhouse Theatre in August 1919 starring Gladys Cooper and Charles Hawtrey. [34] He based himself in Seville, where he grew a moustache, smoked cigars, took lessons in the guitar,[34] and developed a passion for "a young thing with green eyes and a gay smile"[35] (gender carefully unspecified, as Hastings comments). Description: Portrait of William Somerset Maugham: Date: 26 May 1934: Source Wilson later admitted that he had not read, Meyers, p. 9; Maugham (1975), p. 15; Coward, pp. These often convey the emotional toll that isolation exacts from the characters. He told Nol Coward in 1933: Maugham's thirty-second and last play was Sheppey (1933). It is high time for them then to retire. Maugham believed that "it is the impressions of a man's first twenty years which form him", and at the age of 53 - and extracted from his turbulent marriage to Syrie Wellcome - he had chosen to look back at his boyhood on the Kentish coast and at his early adulthood as a medical student in London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories. And in one way or another however indirectly all I've written during the last twenty years has something to do with him".[109]. S omerset M augham is a singular figure in twentieth-century English literature. [43] Punch printed a cartoon of Shakespeare's ghost looking concerned about the ubiquity of Maugham's plays. He is never boring or clumsy, he never gives a false impression; he is never shocking; but this very diplomatic polish makes impossible for him any of those sudden transcendent flashes of passion and beauty which less competent novelists occasionally attain. [135], The biggest theatrical success of Maugham's career was an adaptation by others[n 14] of his short story "Rain", which opened on Broadway in 1921 and ran for 648 performances. Omissions? He returned to Britain and spent three months in a sanatorium in Scotland. [84] By 1925, Maugham, learning that his wife was spreading scandal about his private life and had taken lovers of her own, was reconsidering his future. Maugham wrote that he followed no master, and acknowledged none, but he named Guy de Maupassant as an early influence. Somerset Maugham (1874 -- 1965) grew to fit Brady's bill as a writer. [158] In 2014 Robert McCrum concluded an article about Of Human Bondage which he said "shows the author's savage honesty and gift for storytelling at their best": The hero, Philip Carey, suffers the same childhood misfortunes as Maugham himself: the loss of his mother, the breakup of his family home, and his emotionally straitened upbringing by elderly relatives. [175], In Calder's view Maugham's "ability to tell a fascinating story and his dramatic skill" appealed strongly to the makers of films and radio programmes, but his liberal attitudes, disregard of conventional morality and unsentimental view of humanity led adapters to make his stories "blander, safer, and more narrowly moralistic than he had ever conceived them". William Somerset Maugham Theatre I THE door opened and Michael Gosselyn looked up. Last edit on Apr 05, 2021. More recent assessments generally rank Of Human Bondage a book with a large autobiographical element as a masterpiece, and his short stories are widely held in high critical regard. While he is roaming around the London street in a distressed mood he tries to buy . Somerset Maugham felt that his stories had to have a moral and teach people tolerance, wisdom and compassion. William Somerset Maugham came from a family of lawyers. [38] He had written it four years earlier,[39] but numerous managements turned it down until Otho Stuart accepted it and cast the popular Ethel Irving in the title role. [14], After spending the first ten years of his life in Paris, Maugham found an unwelcome contrast in life at Whitstable, which according to his biographer Ted Morgan "represented social obligation and conformity, the narrow-minded provincialism of nineteenth-century small-town English life". His great popularity and prodigious sales provoked adverse reactions from highbrow critics, many of whom sought to belittle him as merely competent. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. She was married to the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome, but the couple had formally separated in 1909, after which she had a succession of partners, including the retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge. Used; Condition Used - Good ISBN 13 9780140185232 The protagonist of the story, Salvatore who is a usual fisherman's son, is intensely in love with a beautiful girl who lives on the Grande Marina. He was the son of a British diplomat. He was one of the most reputed and well-known . [76], After the war Maugham had to choose between living in Britain or being with Haxton, because the latter was refused admission to the country. Illustration by Edward Sorel. [114][n 11] After returning to Cap Ferrat he completed his last full-length work of fiction, the historical novel Catalina. [5] The Painted Veil is a story of marital strife and adultery against the background of a cholera epidemic in Hong Kong. [40] It ran for 422 performances at five different West End theatres. William Somerset Maugham CH was an English playwright, novelist, and short story writer. Although Maugham's former reputation has become somewhat eclipsed. Support your answer with examples from the story. His supernatural thriller The Magician (1908) had a principal character modelled on Aleister Crowley, a well-known occultist. "[155], The Moon and Sixpence is the story of a man rejecting a conventional lifestyle, family obligations and social responsibility to indulge his ambition to be a painter. Alternate titles: William Somerset Maugham. [85] They divorced in 1929. Explain how this statement is relevant to "Mr. Know-All". Maugham said, "Sometimes it fills me with uneasiness that no less than thirteen persons should spend their lives administering to the comfort of one old party". Size 8vo - over 7 - 9" tall; Keywords Limited edition; Size 8vo - over 7 - 9\" tall; Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different. [180] Titles were altered to avoid association with stage plays held to be sensational: Rain became Sadie Thompson and The Constant Wife became Charming Sinners. In addition, Carey has a. W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage) " If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers. First published in 1989, Mr Calder's attempt to encompass Maugham's life and work in one volume fits nicely between Ted Morgan's Maugham: A Biography (1980) and Jeffrey Meyers' Somerset Maugham: A Life (2004); as far as I know the only other detailed biography is the very recently (2009) published The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina . [138] Raphael remarks about Maugham as a playwright, "His wit was sharp but rarely distressing; his plots abounded in amusing situations, his characters were usually drawn from the same class as his audiences and managed at once to satirize and delight their originals". [129] Maugham's literary style was plain and functional; he disclaimed any pretence of being a prose stylist. [69] She returned to England and he continued with his work as a secret agent. Contents. [20] A modest legacy from his father enabled him to go to Heidelberg University to study. The play was first presented in New York in 1917, running for 112 performances. She began posting to Twitch in June 2019. While there, he established and endowed the Somerset Maugham Award, to be administered by the Society of Authors and given annually for a work of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry written by a British subject under the age of thirty-five. [36], The Making of a Saint, a historical novel, attracted less attention than Liza of Lambeth and its sales were unremarkable. [142] Christopher Innes has observed that, like Chekhov, Maugham qualified as a doctor, and their medical training gave them "a materialistic determinism that discounted any possibility of changing the human condition". William Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874- 16 December 1965) was an English novelist, short story writer and playwright. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. Hastings comments that for the young Maugham the hardest thing to accept in abandoning religious faith was "the knowledge that with no expectation of an afterlife he would never see his mother again". [45][n 5], Maugham was acutely conscious of the fate of Oscar Wilde, whose arrest and imprisonment took place when Maugham was in his early twenties. [176] Some of his stories were judged too improper for the cinema; Calder cites an adaptation of the historical novel Then and Now which the Hays Office rejected for thirty-seven separate reasons. Find The Judgment Seat by W. Somerset Maugham - 1934. The Razor's Edge, the author's last major novel,[5] is described by Sutherland as "Maugham's twentieth-century manifesto for human fulfilment", satirising Western materialism and drawing on Eastern spiritualism as a way to find meaning in existence. He published seventy-eight books -- including the undisputed classics Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge -- which sold over 40 million copies in his lifetime. Sources differ (see footnote 1) on whether Maugham died on 15 or 16 December, but it is generally agreed that to circumvent a law requiring autopsies in cases of death in hospital, he was taken by ambulance, shortly before or shortly after his death, to La Mauresque and it was announced that he had died there on 16 December. Leonard Nimoy has said that when he was creating a voice for Star Trek's Mr. Spock, he listened to hours of recordings of the English writer reading his works. To order The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham for 23 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846. [188], In The Summing Up (1938), Maugham wrote of his non-dramatic work, "I have no illusions about my literary position. When W. SOMERSET MAUGH AM was asked to select and edit the ten best novels in world literature, he thought at once of Balzac. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. W. Somerset Maugham. Died: December 16, 1965, in Nice, France. Corrections? [22] A family friend found Maugham a position in an accountant's office in London, which he endured for a month before resigning. [73] He was a prolific writer: between 1902 and 1933 he had 32 plays staged, and between 1897 and 1962 he published 19 novels, nine volumes of short stories, and non-fiction books covering travel, reminiscences, essays and extracts from his notebooks. [37] Maugham continued to write assiduously and within five years he published two more novels and a collection of short stories, and had his first play produced; but a success to match that of his first book eluded him. W. Somerset Maugham. In the US they spent time in Hollywood, which Maugham despised from the first, but found highly remunerative. There are but two important critics in my own country who have troubled to take me seriously and when clever young men write essays about contemporary fiction they never think of considering me. Somerset Maugham was one of the most popular and commercially successful authors of the twentieth century. We will update W. Somerset Maugham's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible. [25] The local physician in Whitstable suggested the medical profession, and Maugham's uncle agreed. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The marriage lasted for twelve years, but before, during and after it, Maugham's principal partner was a younger man, Gerald Haxton. Among his colleagues was Frederick Gerald Haxton, a young San Franciscan, who became his lover and companion for the next thirty years, but the affair between Maugham and Syrie Wellcome continued.[51]. [42], Maugham later said that he made comparatively little money from this unprecedented theatrical achievement, but it made his reputation. He successfully sued for divorce in 1916, citing Maugham as co-respondent. Both Maugham's parents died before he was 10, and the orphaned boy was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. I cannot tell you how I loathe the theatre. 25 and 68, Sternlicht, p. 72; Innes p. 254; Rogal, p. 247 and Curtis, p. 398, Last edited on 22 February 2023, at 08:19, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, W. Somerset Maugham on stage and screen Plays, List of works by W. Somerset Maugham Novels and story collections, W. Somerset Maugham on stage and screen Film adaptations, " In Fine Society, Infidelity and Its Consequences", "The 100 best novels: No 44 Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham (1915)", "Somerset Maugham's Ethically Earnest Fiction", "W. Somerset Maugham's apocryphal second-rate status: setting the record straight", "W. Somerset Maugham: Theme and Variations", Works by W. Somerset Maugham in eBook form, Works by W. Somerset (William Somerset) Maugham, National Theatre, Maugham's Theatrical Collection, National Theatre, Shakespearean Characters, William Somerset Maugham's stories on Malaya, Borneo and Singapore, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=W._Somerset_Maugham&oldid=1140893483, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 08:19. William Somerset Maugham [mm] ( 25. tammikuuta 1874 Pariisi, Ranska - 16. joulukuuta 1965 Nizza, Ranska) oli englantilainen nytelmkirjailija, kirjailija ja novellisti, 1930-luvun tunnetuimpia lnsimaisia kirjailijoita ja tiettvsti mys suurituloisimpia. [153] Rosie appears to be based on Sue Jones, to whom Maugham had proposed in 1913. Part one of two of four stories from Somerset's Quartet film. Filmed at Somerset Maugham's villa at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the Mediterranean, this program features the author and playwright in a far-ranging 1955 conve. [157], For many readers and critics, the best of Maugham is in his short stories. He was, by his own account, not a particularly imaginative or inventive person, but he studied people and places and used them, sometimes with minimal alteration or disguise, in his stories. He told his nephew Robin, "I tried to persuade myself that I was three-quarters normal and that only a quarter of me was queer whereas really it was the other way round". His lifestyle was modest: he felt that despite his considerable wealth he should not live luxuriously while Britain was enduring wartime privations. [129] In the view of Kenneth Funsten in a 1981 study, British writers with whom Maugham has stylistic affinities include Jonathan Swift, William Hazlitt, John Dryden and John Henry Newman "all practitioners of precise prose". [94] Maugham later wrote, "I grew conscious that I was no longer in touch with the public that patronises the theatre. She had the re-mains of good looks, so that you said to yourself that when young . One recalls, too, the long list of movies that have been made from his novels . The lifelong ban followed his arrest and trial over a homosexual incident in 1915. He has been a verger in St. Peter's Neville Square Church, doing his duties with great enjoyment and dedication. Biography of William Somerset Maugham (excerpt) William Somerset Maugham, CH (January 25, 1874 - December 16, 1965) was an English playwright, novelist, and theatre writer. [122] He kept himself fit, and further attempted to fend off the encroachments of age with supposedly rejuvenating injections at the clinic of Paul Niehans. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. [164], Among the short stories set in England, one of the best-known is "The Alien Corn" (1931), where a young man rediscovers his Jewish heritage and rejects his family's efforts to distance themselves from Judaism. Maugham was miserable, both at the vicarage and at school, where he was bullied because of his small size and his stammer. Together they made extended visits to Asia, the South Seas and other destinations; Maugham gathered material for his fiction wherever they went. Marking Maugham's eightieth birthday The New York Times commented that he had not only outlived his contemporaries including Shaw, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, Henry James, Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy but was now seen to rank with them in excellence, after years in which his popularity had caused critics to depreciate his work. [46] Lifelong, Maugham was highly reticent about homosexual encounters, but it was thought by at least two of his lovers that at this period in his life he had recourse to young male prostitutes. [99], Throughout the decade Maugham, with Haxton in attendance, lived and entertained lavishly at his house on Cap Ferrat, the Villa La Mauresque. He had an amiability of disposition that enabled him in a very short time to make friends with people in ships, clubs, bar-rooms, and hotels, so that through him I was able to get into easy contact with an immense number of persons whom otherwise I should have known only from a distance. Maugham was born in the English embassy in Paris; the youngest son, he was nicknamed "Willie" by his beautiful mother, Edith . Of Human Bondage is certainly one; Cakes and Ale probably; The Moon and Sixpence possibly. "The Razor's Edge," which would be his last important work, was published in 1944. His first fiction was the critically praised naturalist novel of London slum life, Liza of Lambeth, which was published in 1897, when Maugham was 23 and completing his medical training at London's St Thomas's Hospital. After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham. [130] H.E.Bates, praising many of Maugham's attributes as a writer, objected to his frequent reliance on clichd phrases,[131] and George Lyttelton commented that Maugham "purchases a beautiful lucidity at the cost of numberless clichs", but rated the lucidity second only to that of Shaw. His work was popular for his simple style of writing, as well as his sharp and accurate understanding and judgment of human nature. [5] This book, described by Raphael as "an elegant piece of literary malice",[73] is a satire on the literary world and a humorously cynical observation of human mating. William Somerset Maugham was one of the most popular writers of his time, and reputedly the highest paid author of the 1930s. W. Somerset Maugham (1954). Somerset Maugham. [146] In London, the National Theatre has presented two Maugham plays since its inception in 1963: Home and Beauty in 1968 and For Services Rendered in 1979. [144] Trewin singles out The Circle, calling it one of the great comedies of the 20th century, and comparing it with Congreve's The Way of the World, to the disadvantage of the latter: "He can put Congreve to shame in the task of telling a theatrical story telling it clearly and without inessentials". [22], After Maugham's return to Britain in 1892, he and his uncle had to decide on his future. William ('W.') Somerset Maugham. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London. [181] Calder cites BBC Television's series of twenty-six stories shown in 1969 and 1970, adapted by dramatists including Roy Clarke, Simon Gray, Hugh Leonard, Simon Raven and Hugh Whitemore,[182] "presented with scrupulous fidelity to [their] tone, attitude, and thematic intention". [21] Brooks encouraged Maugham's ambitions to be a writer and introduced him to the works of Schopenhauer and Spinoza. His fluency in French and German was an advantage, and for a year he worked in Geneva at his own expense as an agent for the British Secret Service. He achieved fame initially as a dramatist with plays such as Lady Frederick (1912) and The Circle (1921). His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. [149], Liza of Lambeth caused outrage in some quarters, not only because its heroine sleeps with a married man, but also for its graphic depiction of the deprivation and squalor of the London slums, of which most people from Maugham's social class preferred to remain ignorant. [78] He spent much time travelling with Haxton. Peaches were not in season then. He was acquitted, but was nonetheless registered as an "undesirable alien". Like Of Human Bondage it has a strong female character at its centre, but the two are polar opposites: the malign Mildred in the earlier novel contrasts with the lovable, and much loved, Rosie in Cakes and Ale. During the First World War Maugham worked for the British Secret Service, later drawing on his experiences for stories published in the 1920s. 27, 59, 143 and 295, Mander and Mitchenson, p. 15; and Richards, pp. His aunt, who was German, arranged accommodation for him, and aged sixteen he travelled to Germany. HONOLULU VII. 245246. [55] When the book was published in 1915 some of the initial reviews were favourable but many, both in Britain and in the US, were unenthusiastic. William Somerset Maugham[n 2] CH (/mm/ MAWM; 25 January 1874 16 December 1965)[n 1] was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. In the weeks before the war began, Maugham had been completing his novel Of Human Bondage, a Bildungsroman with substantial autobiographical elements. Maugham also travelled far and wide to Europe, North America, the Far East, the South seas and beyond. Nice. He drew upon his experiences as an obstetrician in his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), and its success, though small, encouraged him to abandon medicine. After Haxton's death in 1944, Alan Searle became Maugham's secretary-companion for the rest of the author's life. I saw how they bore pain. [n 3] Robert Maugham handled the legal affairs of the British Embassy there, as his eldest surviving son, Charles, later did. [79], In late 1920 Maugham and Haxton set out on a trip that lasted more than a year. Again, despite the suffering of the main characters, there is a reasonably happy ending for the central figure, Kitty. [15] Maugham's biographer Selina Hastings describes as "the first step in Maugham's loss of faith" his disillusion when the God in whom he had been taught to believe failed to answer his prayers for relief from his troubles. [29] The Westminster Gazette praised the writing but deplored the subject matter,[30] and The Times also conceded the author's skill "Mr Maugham seems to aspire, and not unsuccessfully, to be the Zola of the New Cut" but thought him "capable of better things [than] this singularly unpleasant novel". [n 8], During the 1920s Maugham published one novel (The Painted Veil, (1925)), three books of short stories (The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), The Casuarina Tree (1926) and Ashenden (1928)) and a travel book (On a Chinese Screen, (1922)) but much of his work was for the theatre. [145], A few of Maugham's plays have been revived occasionally. He studied in Dune and qualified as a doctor, but found his calling in writing. [190] L. A. G. Strong acknowledged his craftsmanship, but described his writing as having an effect like "that of music expertly played in an expensive restaurant at dinner". [5] He attempted to disinherit his daughter and to make Searle his adopted son, but the courts prevented it.[124]. Somerset Maugham ? [147] Other London productions have included The Circle (1976), For Services Rendered (1993), The Constant Wife (2000) and Home and Beauty (2002). [80] They then visited San Francisco and sailed to Honolulu and Australia before the final leg of their voyage, to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula, where they remained for six months. During his time in Heidelberg he had his first sexual affair; it was with John Ellingham Brooks, an Englishman ten years his senior. Antonyms for Somerset Maugham. [13] Two and a half years after his mother's death his father died, and Maugham was sent to England to live with his paternal uncle Henry MacDonald Maugham, the vicar of Whitstable in Kent. [190] A rising critic of a younger generation, Cyril Connolly, praised Maugham for his lucidity and called him "the last of the great professional writers",[190] but Connolly's contemporary Edmund Wilson insisted that Maugham was second-rate and "disappointing". And his uncle had to have a moral and teach people tolerance, wisdom and compassion and spent months. And functional ; he disclaimed any pretence of being a prose stylist the highest-paid author during the first, found. This statement is relevant to & quot ; ; Maugham gathered material for his style! Encouraged Maugham 's thirty-second and last play was Sheppey ( 1933 ) the of. For 112 performances the West End of London in London and qualified as a physician in 1897 CH was English... Author during the 1930s in Whitstable suggested the medical profession, and short stories experiences for published. Suggested the medical profession, and short story writer pretence of being a prose stylist encouraged Maugham 's for. 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