W. Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham CH 25 January 1874 16 December 1965 was an English writer known for his plays novels and short stories Born in Paris where he spent his first ten years Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897 He never practised medicine and became a fulltime writer 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 By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933 after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories Maughams novels after Liza of Lambeth include Of Human Bondage 1915 The Moon and Sixpence 1919 The Painted Veil 1925 Cakes and Ale 1930 and The Razors Edge 1944 His short stories were published in collections such as The Casuarina Tree 1926 and The Mixture as Before 1940 many of them have been adapted for radio cinema and television His great popularity and prodigious sales provoked adverse reactions from highbrow critics many of whom sought to belittle him as merely competent 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 Maughams plain prose style became known for its lucidity but his reliance on clichés attracted adverse critical comment During the First World War Maugham worked for the British Secret Service later drawing on his experiences for stories published in the 1920s Although primarily homosexual he attempted to conform to some extent with the norms of his day He became a father and husband marrying Syrie Wellcome in 1917 three years into an affair that produced their daughter Liza The marriage lasted for twelve years but before during and after it Maughams principal partner was a younger man Gerald Haxton Together they made extended visits to Asia the South Seas and other destinations Maugham gathered material for his fiction wherever they went They lived together in the French Riviera where Maugham entertained lavishly After Haxtons death in 1944 Alan Searle became Maughams secretarycompanion for the rest of the authors life Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War and his last years were marred by senility He died at the age of 91 Description above from the Wikipedia article W Somerset Maugham licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia