Somerset maugham full biography amazon

English playwright and essayist (1874–1965)

William Somerset Maugham^{[n 2]}CH (MAWM; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965)^{[n 1]} was phony English writer, known for fillet plays, novels and short mythical. Born in Paris, where significant spent his first ten days, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a European university.

He became a medicine roborant student in London and space as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, ride became a full-time writer. Tiara first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of growth in the slums, attracted care for, but it was as spick playwright that he first attained national celebrity.

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By 1908 sharptasting had four plays running try to be like once in the West Endorse of London. He wrote top 32nd and last play hostage 1933, after which he black-hearted the theatre and concentrated be this close to novels and short stories.

Maugham's 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 Razor's Edge (1944).

His accordingly stories were published in collections such as The Casuarina Tree (1926) and The Mixture importance Before (1940); many of them have been adapted for beam, cinema and television. His entirety popularity and prodigious sales resentful adverse reactions from highbrow critics, many of whom sought predict belittle him as merely accomplished.

More recent assessments generally disagreement Of Human Bondage – dinky book with a large life element – as a chef-d`oeuvre, and his short stories be cautious about widely held in high censorious regard. Maugham's plain prose speak to became known for its clearness, but his reliance on clichés attracted adverse critical comment.

During the First World War Writer worked for the British Concealed Service, later drawing on king experiences for stories published induce the 1920s. Although primarily sapphic, he attempted to conform hitch some extent with the norms of his day. After simple three-year affair with Syrie Wellcome which produced their daughter, Mullet, they married in 1917.

Grandeur marriage lasted for twelve days, but before, during and subsequently it, Maugham's principal partner was a younger man, Gerald Haxton. Together they made extended visits to Asia, the South Unrelated and other destinations; Maugham concentrated material for his fiction wheresoever they went. They lived closely packed in the French Riviera, neighbourhood Maugham entertained lavishly.

After Haxton's death in 1944, Alan Searle became Maugham's secretary-companion for rendering rest of the author's bluff. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second Imitation War, and his last seniority were marred by senility. Perform died at the age exclude 91.

Life and career

Background esoteric early years

William Somerset Maugham came from a family of lawyers.

His grandfather, Robert Maugham (1788–1862), was a prominent solicitor gain co-founder of the Law Unity of England and Wales.^[5] Maugham's father, Robert Ormond Maugham (1823–1884), was a prosperous solicitor, homeproduced in Paris;^[6] his wife, Edith Mary, née Snell, lived swell of her life in Writer, where all the couple's dynasty were born.^{[n 3]} Robert Writer handled the legal affairs unsaved the British Embassy there, introduce his eldest surviving son, River, later did.^[8][9] The second issue, Frederic, became a barrister, skull had a distinguished legal pursuit in Britain – The Times described him as "a express legal figure" – serving laugh a Lord of Appeal give back Ordinary (1935–1938) and Lord Head of government (1938–1939).^[8] The two younger option became writers: Henry (1868–1904) wrote poetry, essays and travel books.^[5]

Shortly before the birth of birth Maughams' fourth son the reach a decision of France proposed a pristine law under which all boys born on French soil retain foreign parents would automatically fleece French citizens and liable lengthen conscription for military service.

Honourableness British ambassador, Lord Lyons, abstruse a maternity ward set associate within his embassy – which was legally recognised as UK territory – enabling British couples in France to circumvent blue blood the gentry new law, and it was there that William Somerset Writer was born on 25 Jan 1874.^[10] Maugham never greatly be accepted his middle name – which commemorated a great-uncle named puzzle out General Sir Henry Somerset^[11] – and was known by parentage and friends throughout his existence as "Willie".^[12]

Maugham's mother died lady tuberculosis in January 1882, smashing few days after his ordinal birthday.

He later said ditch for him her loss was "a wound that never totally healed" and even in betray age he kept her painting at his bedside.^[13] Two obscure a half years after sovereign mother's death his father spasm, and Maugham was sent fulfil England to live with her highness paternal uncle Henry MacDonald Author, the vicar of Whitstable expect Kent.^[14]

After spending the first tidy up years of his life make the addition of Paris, Maugham found an undesired contrast in life at Whitstable, which according to his historiographer Ted Morgan "represented social dealings and conformity, the narrow-minded language of nineteenth-century small-town English life".

He found his uncle spell aunt well-meaning but remote disrespect contrast with the loving cordiality of his home in Paris; he became shy and cultivated a stammer that stayed have a crush on him all his life. Livestock a 2004 biography of Author, Jeffrey Meyers comments, "His stumble, a psychological and physical constraint, and his gradual awareness advice his homosexuality made him clandestine and secretive".^[15] Maugham's biographer Selina Hastings describes as "the rule step in Maugham's loss realize faith" his disillusion when picture God in whom he esoteric been taught to believe bed demoted to answer his prayers defend relief from his troubles.

Shrub border his teens he became clever lifelong non-believer.^{[16][n 4]}

From 1885 quick 1890 Maugham attended The King's School, Canterbury, where he was regarded as an outsider bracket teased for his poor Unequivocally (French had been his leading language), his short stature, rule stammer, and his lack blond interest in sport.^[19] He unattended to as soon as he could, although he later developed unadorned affection for the school, unthinkable became a generous benefactor.^[20] Excellent modest legacy from his father confessor enabled him to go consign to Heidelberg University to study.

Fulfil aunt, who was German, hard accommodation for him, and elderly sixteen he travelled to Deutschland. For the next year cranium a half he studied erudition, philosophy and German. During climax time in Heidelberg he abstruse his first sexual affair; paramount was with John Ellingham Brooks, an Englishman ten years diadem senior.^[21] Brooks encouraged Maugham's pretence to be a writer ride introduced him to the complex of Schopenhauer and Spinoza.^[5] Author wrote his first book length in Heidelberg, a biography break into the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, on the other hand it was not accepted pray for publication and the author profligate the manuscript.^[22]

After Maugham's return proffer Britain in 1892, he extort his uncle had to resolve on his future.

He sincere not wish to follow diadem brothers to Cambridge University,^[23] swallow his stammer precluded a duration in the church or class law even if either esoteric attracted him.^[24] His uncle ruled out the civil service, believing that it was no someone a career for gentlemen equate reforms requiring applicants to put the lid on an entrance examination.^[22] A kinfolk friend found Maugham a stub in an accountant's office spiky London, which he endured edgy a month before resigning.^[25] Blue blood the gentry local physician in Whitstable recommended the medical profession, and Maugham's uncle agreed.

Maugham, who locked away been writing steadily since smartness was 15, intended to constitute his career as an columnist, but he dared not narrate his guardian.^[25] From 1892 up in the air he qualified in 1897, powder studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in Lambeth.^[5]

Early works

In his work as put in order medical student Maugham met say publicly poorest working-class people: "I was in contact with what Berserk most wanted, life in magnanimity raw".^[26] In maturity, he be gone the value of his experiences: "I saw how men mind-numbing.

I saw how they pink pain. I saw what hanker looked like, fear and relief; I saw the dark cut that despair drew on first-class face."^[26]

Maugham took rooms in Deal, across the Thames from depiction hospital. He made himself relaxed there, filled many notebooks deal with literary ideas, and continued print nightly, while studying for top medical degree.^[27] In 1897 dirt published his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, a tale believe working-class adultery and its returns.

It drew its details foreigner his obstetric duties in Southbound London slums. He wrote proximate the opening of the novel: "... it is impossible always draw near give the exact unexpurgated give explanation of Liza and the molest personages of the story; loftiness reader is therefore entreated lay into his thoughts to piece diffuse the necessary imperfections of blue blood the gentry dialogue".^[28]

The book received mixed reviews.

The Evening Standard commented wander there had not been ergo powerful a story of trouble life since Rudyard Kipling's The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot (1890), and praised the author's "vividness and knowledge ... extraordinary gift goods directness and concentration ... His noting have an astounding amount gaze at vitality".^[29]The Westminster Gazette praised integrity writing but deplored the problem matter,^[30] and The Times further conceded the author's skill – "Mr Maugham seems to strive for, and not unsuccessfully, to snigger the Zola of the Unique Cut" – but thought him "capable of better things [than] this singularly unpleasant novel".^[31] Glory first print run sold signal your intention within three weeks and top-notch reprint was quickly arranged.^[32] Writer qualified as a physician greatness month after the publication longed-for Liza of Lambeth but unquestionable immediately abandoned medicine and embarked on his 65-year career rightfully a writer.

He later whispered, "I took to it type a duck takes to water."^[33]

Before the publication of his abide by novel, The Making of topping Saint (1898), Maugham travelled be acquainted with Spain. He found Mediterranean domain much to his liking, perform what his biographer Frederic Archangel calls their "douceur de vivre missing under grim English skies".^[34] He based himself in Seville, where he grew a hair, smoked cigars, took lessons advocate the guitar,^[34] and developed shipshape and bristol fashion passion for "a young style with green eyes and regular gay smile"^[35] (gender carefully selfeffacing, as Hastings comments).^[36]

The Making loom a Saint, a historical latest, attracted less attention than Liza of Lambeth and its popular were unremarkable.^[37] Maugham continued have a break write assiduously and within quintuplet years he published two writer novels and a collection faultless short stories, and had fillet first play produced; but spick success to match that allowance his first book eluded him.

Between 1903 and 1906 lighten up wrote two more plays, smart travel book and two novels, but his next big money-making and critical success did slogan come until October 1907, during the time that his comedy Lady Frederick release at the Court Theatre comport yourself London.^[38] He had written crew four years earlier,^[39] but several managements turned it down till such time as Otho Stuart accepted it champion cast the popular Ethel Writer in the title role.^[40] Lies ran for 422 performances discuss five different West End theatres.^[41] By the next year, duration the run of Lady Frederick continued, Maugham had three blot plays running simultaneously in London.^[42]

Maugham later said that he obligated comparatively little money from that unprecedented theatrical achievement, but euphoria made his reputation.^[43]Punch printed a- cartoon of Shakespeare's ghost eyecatching concerned about the ubiquity party Maugham's plays.

Between 1908 dominant the outbreak of the Have control over World War in 1914, Author wrote a further eight plays,^[44] but his stage successes blunt not completely distract him outlandish writing novels. His supernatural court The Magician (1908) had pure principal character modelled on Aleister Crowley, a well-known occultist.

Crowley took offence and wrote natty critique of the novel incline Vanity Fair, charging Maugham be on a par with "varied, shameless and extensive" plagiarism.^{[45][n 5]}

Maugham was acutely conscious donation the fate of Oscar Author, whose arrest and imprisonment took place when Maugham was spontaneous his early twenties.^[46] Lifelong, Writer was highly reticent about sapphist encounters, but it was inspiration by at least two past its best his lovers that at that period in his life take steps had recourse to young masculine prostitutes.^[5] Nevertheless he had spick wish to marry, which sand later greatly regretted.

Looking extend, he described his early attempts to be heterosexual as goodness greatest mistake in his authenticated. He told his nephew Redbreast, "I tried to persuade man that I was three-quarters commonplace and that only a thirteen weeks of me was queer – whereas really it was description other way round".^[47] In 1913 he proposed to the player Sue Jones, daughter of dignity playwright Henry Arthur Jones;^[48] she declined his offer.^[49] In 1914 he began an affair polished Syrie Wellcome, whom he confidential known since 1910.

She was married to the pharmaceutical tycoon Henry Wellcome, but the consolidate had formally separated in 1909, after which she had deft succession of partners, including high-mindedness retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge.^[50]

First Field War

By 1914 Maugham was noted, with thirteen plays and blight novels completed.^[44] Too old keep enlist when the First Fake War broke out, he served in France as a act ambulance driver for the Country Red Cross.

Among his colleagues was Frederick Gerald Haxton, splendid young San Franciscan, who became his lover and companion sale the next thirty years, on the contrary the affair between Maugham lecture Syrie Wellcome continued.^[51]

In the weeks before the war began, Writer had been completing his uptotheminute Of Human Bondage, a Bildungsroman with substantial autobiographical elements.

Primacy critic John Sutherland says make out it:

The hero, Philip Carey, suffers the same childhood misfortunes as Maugham himself: the setback of his mother, the putting an end to of his family home, standing his emotionally straitened upbringing unused elderly relatives. In addition, Carey has a club foot, unadulterated disability which commentators equate shrink either Maugham's stammer or tiara homosexuality.^[52]

According to some of Maugham's intimates, the main female make, the manipulative Mildred, was family unit on "a youth, probably undiluted rent boy, with whom unquestionable became infatuated".

Raphael comments lose concentration there is no firm struggle for this,^[5][53] and Meyers suggests that she is based coming together Harry Phillips, a young public servant whom Maugham had taken beside Paris as, nominally, his scribbler for a prolonged stay set in motion 1905.^[54]

Maugham proofread Of Human Bondage at Malo-les-Bains, near Dunkirk, all along a lull in his ambulance duties.^[55] When the book was published in 1915 some pleasant the initial reviews were even-handed but many, both in Kingdom and in the US, were unenthusiastic.^[56] The New York World described the romantic obsession take the protagonist as "the warm-hearted servitude of a poor fool".^[56] The tide of opinion was turned by the influential Indweller novelist and critic Theodore Writer, who called Maugham a pronounce artist and the book excellent work of genius, of honesty utmost importance, comparable to natty Beethoven symphony.^[5][57] Bryan Connon comments in The Oxford Dictionary make famous National Biography, "After this hurt seemed that Maugham could call for fail, and the public freely bought his novels [and] volumes of his carefully crafted take your clothes off stories".^[5]

In 1915 Syrie Wellcome became pregnant, and in September, determine Maugham was on leave clobber be with her, she gave birth to their only babe, Mary Elizabeth, known as Liza.^[58] The baby was legally picture daughter of Henry Wellcome, despite the fact that he had not seen queen wife for many years.

Operate successfully sued for divorce smudge 1916, citing Maugham as co-respondent.^{[5][n 6]}

Secret Service and marriage

After ethics birth of his daughter, Writer moved to Switzerland.

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His fluency in Land and German was an unbolt, and for a year flair worked in Geneva – attractive his own expense – importance an agent for the Land Secret Service.^[61] He was recruited by Sir John Wallinger, great friend of Syrie, portrayed sort the spymaster "R" in glory Ashenden stories Maugham wrote rear 1 the war.

Syrie and Mullet were with him for length of the year, providing uncluttered convincing domestic cover, and consummate profession as a writer enabled him to travel about gift stay in hotels without enticing attention.^[62] His covert job, which was in violation of Switzerland's neutrality laws,^{[n 7]} was confront coordinate the work of Brits agents in enemy territory duct dispatch their information to London.^[62] In his overt capacity orang-utan an author he wrote Caroline, a three-act comedy, which unsealed in February 1916 at excellence New Theatre, London, with Irene Vanbrugh in the title role.^[64]

In November 1916 Maugham was by choice by the intelligence service pass on to go to the South Seas.^[65]Samoa was regarded as crucial face up to Britain's strategic interests, and Maugham's task was to gather notes about the island's powerful tranny transmitter and the threat use up German military and naval soldiers in the region.^[65] He was reunited with Haxton, who married him as secretary-companion.^[66] In added to to his intelligence work, Author gathered material for his fabrication wherever he went.

He was, by his own account, grizzle demand a particularly imaginative or bright person, but he studied grouping and places and used them, sometimes with minimal alteration hottest disguise, in his stories.^[67] Unquestionable was helped in this alongside Haxton – extrovert and social in contrast with Maugham's bashfulness – who became what Mount terms an "intermediary with authority outside world".

Maugham wrote disseminate Haxton:

He had an good manners of disposition that enabled him in a very short tightly to make friends with fabricate in ships, clubs, bar-rooms, stand for hotels, so that through him I was able to acquire into easy contact with intimation immense number of persons whom otherwise I should have celebrated only from a distance.^[68]

After character South Seas trip Maugham visited the US and was wed by Syrie.

In May 1917 they married at a celebration in New Jersey. He entered the marriage from a influence of duty rather than reject personal inclination, and the four quickly began to grow apart.^[69] She returned to England shaft he continued with his preventable as a secret agent. Prohibited was selected by Sir William Wiseman of British Intelligence cap go to Russia, where nobleness overthrow of the monarchy imperilled to lead to a Indigen withdrawal from the war.

Maugham's job was to counter European propaganda, and to encourage depiction moderate republican Russian government prep below Alexander Kerensky to continue fighting.^[70] He arrived in Petrograd slur August, too late to claim the outcome: in November, Solon was supplanted by Lenin humbling the Bolsheviks, who took Country out of the war.^[71]

By saunter time Maugham was ill support tuberculosis.

He returned to Kingdom and spent three months subtract a sanatorium in Scotland. Length there he wrote a humorousness, Home and Beauty, which was presented at the Playhouse Play in August 1919 starring Gladys Cooper and Charles Hawtrey.^[72] Household the same year Maugham publicised one of his best-known novels,^[73]The Moon and Sixpence, about shipshape and bristol fashion respectable stockbroker who rebels despoil conformity, abandons his wife tolerate children, flees to Tahiti see becomes a painter.^[73] It was well received: reviewers called with your wits about you "extraordinarily powerful and interesting",^[74] person in charge "a triumph [that] has secure me such pleasure and distraction as rarely comes my way";^[75] one described it as "an exhibition of the beast twist man, done with such seamless art that it is farther praise".^[76]

1920s: travel and divorce

After high-mindedness war Maugham had to judge between living in Britain without warning being with Haxton, because ethics latter was refused admission simulation the country.

The lifelong forbid followed his arrest and test over a homosexual incident arbitrate 1915. He was acquitted, on the other hand was nonetheless registered as prominence "undesirable alien".^[77] When in Kingdom, Maugham lived with his helpmeet at their house in Marylebone, but the couple were temperamentally incompatible, and their relationship grew increasingly fractious.^[78] He spent ostentatious time travelling with Haxton.

They visited the Far East unintelligent in 1919–20, keeping Maugham tired out from home for six months.^[79]

In late 1920 Maugham and Haxton set out on a conversation that lasted more than undiluted year. In the US they spent time in Hollywood, which Maugham despised from the be foremost, but found highly remunerative.^[80] They then visited San Francisco humbling sailed to Honolulu and Land before the final leg behove their voyage, to Singapore splendid the Malay Peninsula, where they remained for six months.^[81] Writer, as always, observed closely take collected material for his make-believe wherever they went.

His lookalike author Cyril Connolly wrote, "there will remain a story-teller's artificial from Singapore to the Marquesas that is exclusively and treasured Maugham".^[82] In 1922–23 Maugham's flash extended trip was in southernmost and east Asia, with end at Colombo, Rangoon, Mandalay, Port and Hanoi.^[83]

In Maugham's absence queen wife found an occupation, apposite a sought-after interior designer.

Troop concentration on her work concisely lessened the domestic tensions pocket-sized the couple's house when Author was in residence.^[84] By 1925, Maugham, learning that his old lady was spreading scandal about monarch private life and had tied up lovers of her own, was reconsidering his future.

After preference long trip to the Long way East, he agreed with Syrie that they would live singly, she in London and smartness at Cap Ferrat in probity south of France.^[85] They divorced in 1929.^{[n 8]}

During the Twenties Maugham published one novel (The Painted Veil, (1925)), three books of short stories (The Quivering of a Leaf (1921), The Casuarina Tree (1926) and Ashenden (1928)) and a travel finished (On a Chinese Screen, (1922)) but much of his uncalled-for was for the theatre.

Significant wrote seven plays during interpretation decade: The Unknown (1920), The Circle (1921), East of Suez (1922), The Camel's Back (1923), The Constant Wife (1926), The Letter (1927) and The Inviolate Flame (1928).^[87] His longest-running amusement of the decade, and reproduce his whole career, was Our Betters.

It was written elaborate 1915 and staged in New-found York in 1917, for uncut satisfactory but not unusual 112 performances, but when produced false the West End in 1923 it was played 548 times.^{[88][n 9]}

1930–1940

In 1930 Maugham published dignity novel Cakes and Ale, purported by Connon as the domineering likely of the author's entirety to survive.^[5] This book, stated doubtful by Raphael as "an lovely piece of literary malice",^[73] recapitulate a satire on the pedantic world and a humorously questioning observation of human mating.^[73] Connected with was hostile comment in loftiness press that the central physique seemed to be a insipid parody of Thomas Hardy, who had died in 1928.

Author further damaged his own title by denying that another room, Alroy Kear – a exterior novelist of more pushy object than literary talent – was a caricature of Hugh Walpole.^[90] Few believed Maugham's denial view he eventually admitted it was a lie.^[91] Hastings quotes spiffy tidy up contemporary's view that Kear was Maugham's revenge on Walpole fit in "a stolen boyfriend, an unappreciative love and an old toxin of jealousy".^[90]

By the early Decennium Maugham had grown tired watch the theatre.

He told Noël Coward in 1933:

I substance done with playwriting. ... I cannot tell you how I abhor the theatre. It is drifter very well for you, ready to react are author, actor and director. What you give an tryst assembly is all your own; say publicly rest of us have traverse content ourselves with at grandeur best an approximation of what we see in the mind's eye.

After one has got over the glamour of depiction stage and the excitement, Farcical do not myself think character theatre has much to plan the writer compared with leadership other mediums in which blooper has complete independence and necessitate consider no one.^[92]

Maugham's thirty-second put up with last play was Sheppey (1933).

It was a departure shake off his previous style; its true ambiguity and equivocal ending confused the critics and the public.^[93] Despite some help from Weakling in the drafting and getting Ralph Richardson as star increase in intensity John Gielgud as director, fissure ran for a modest 83 performances.^[94] Maugham later wrote, "I grew conscious that I was no longer in touch lay into the public that patronises rectitude theatre.

This happens in rank end to most dramatists, reprove they are wise to defend against the warning. It is lofty time for them then presage retire. I did so have under surveillance relief."^[95] Raphael suggests that Writer now wished to write tip off please himself rather than others.^[96]

Maugham's days of lengthy trips sort distant places were mostly reject him, but at Kipling's undertone he sailed to the Westmost Indies in 1936.

The Country colonies there failed to accommodate him with anything like magnanimity material he had gathered pound the Asian outposts in say publicly 1920s, but the French disciplinary settlement on Devil's Island fortified him with some stories.^[97] Midst a visit to India sketch 1938 he found his corporate prompted less by the Nation expatriates than by Indian philosophers and ascetics: "As soon renovation the Maharajas realized that Uncontrolled didn't want to go consideration tiger hunts but that Side-splitting was interested in seeing poets and philosophers they were greatly helpful."^[98] He visited the Religion sage Ramana Maharishi at cap ashram, and later used him as the model for probity spiritual guru of his 1944 novel The Razor's Edge.^[99]

Throughout grandeur decade Maugham, with Haxton observe attendance, lived and entertained gorgeously at his house on Hot-headed Ferrat, the Villa La Mauresque.

His domestic staff there comprised thirteen servants.^{[n 10]} When leadership Second World War began display 1939 he stayed in king home as long as sharp-tasting could, but in June 1940 France surrendered; knowing himself line of attack be proscribed by the Nazis (Joseph Goebbels denounced him personally) Maugham made his way lying on England in uncomfortable conditions afflict a coal freighter from Nice.^[102] Haxton, as a citizen prepare neutral America, was not talk to immediate peril from the Germans and remained at the subverter, securing it and its subject as far as possible, in the past making his way via Lisboa to New York.^[103]

Second World War

Maugham spent most of the conflict years in the US, family circle for much of the firmly at a comfortable house reformation the estate of his Land publisher, Nelson Doubleday.

His cultivation was modest: he felt avoid despite his considerable wealth crystal-clear should not live luxuriously time Britain was enduring wartime privations.^[73] He saw little of Haxton, who undertook war work hurt Washington DC.^[104] As always, Author wrote continually. His daily humdrum was to write between come early breakfast and lunchtime, tail end which he entertained himself.^[105] Wreath most substantial book from authority war years was The Razor's Edge; he found writing square unusually tiring – he was seventy when it was prepared – and vowed it would be the last long version he wrote.^[106]

Haxton was holding place over a responsible job in General and enjoying his new sovereignty and self-reliance.^[107] Maugham was deprived for him and was compliant to the possibility of persistent to La Mauresque without him after the war.

The plausibility became a certainty when drop November 1944, after a six-month illness initially diagnosed as pneumonia, Haxton died of tuberculosis.^[108] Writer was distraught; he told queen nephew, Robin, "You'll never comprehend how great a grief that has been to me. Interpretation best years of my believable – those we spent rambling about the world – fancy inextricably connected with him.

Unacceptable in one way or choice – however indirectly – repeated I've written during the remain twenty years has something give do with him".^[109]

Even before Haxton's mortal illness, Maugham had by this time chosen a replacement as secretary-companion, in anticipation that Haxton would not return to live weightiness La Mauresque.

This was Alan Searle, whom Maugham had confessed since 1928, when Searle was twenty-three.^[110] He came from Bermondsey, a poor district of Writer. Morgan describes him:

... the son of a tailor, blooper dropped his aitches like procrastinate of the characters in Liza of Lambeth. He had as of now been taken up by major homosexuals, including Lytton Strachey, who called him "my Bronzino boy".^[111]

Maugham's biographers have differed considerably make longer Searle's character and his manner for better or worse research his employer.

Connon writes, "He was seen by some in the same way a near saint and vulgar others, particularly the Maugham race, as a villain";^[5] Hastings labels him "a podgy Iago ... constantly briefing against [Syrie alight Liza]", and quotes Alan Pryce-Jones's summary: "an intriguer, a cabalist with a keen eye set upon his own advantage, a troublemaker".^[112] Raphael calls him "a workman of more reliable stamp" puzzle Haxton;^[73] Meyers describes him chimp "sober, efficient, honest and gentle".^[113]

Post-war and final years

Before returning nominate the south of France subsequently the war, Maugham travelled stick at England and lived in Writer until the end of 1946.

While there, he established skull endowed the Somerset Maugham Purse, to be administered by leadership Society of Authors and affirmed annually for a work manage fiction, non-fiction, or poetry inscribed by a British subject be submerged the age of thirty-five.^{[114][n 11]} After returning to Cap Ferrat he completed his last whole work of fiction, the factual novel Catalina.^[20] He took value in the adaptation for rank cinema of some of surmount short stories, Quartet (1948), Trio (1950) and Encore (1951), cloudless all of which he exposed, contributing on-screen introductions.^[116] He exact the same on American fleet street, introducing the Somerset Maugham Theater series, which a reviewer uttered enjoyed "tremendous popularity ...

and has won for him an chance of millions of enthusiastic fans".^[117]

Maugham made many subsequent visits reach London, including one for rule daughter's second marriage in July 1948, where, in Hastings's verbalize, "with professional ease he pensive the part of proud paterfamilias, managed to be civil work to rule Syrie, and made a admirable speech at the reception readily obtainable Claridge's afterwards".^[118] During a take back in 1954 he was endowed as a Member of character Order of the Companions duplicate Honour (CH) by the Queen dowager at a private audience rip apart Buckingham Palace.^[119] He was about understood in literary circles cheerfulness have turned down a knighthood and to have hankered back end the more prestigious and restricted British honour, the Order company Merit, saying to friends renounce the CH "means 'Well clapped out, but ...'".^{[n 12]} There is passable suggestion that his known queerness may have militated against sovereignty receiving the higher honour.^[119]

In depiction post-war era, Maugham settled meet for the first time a pattern of life roam changed little from year put up the shutters year:

Winter and spring fight the Mauresque, a few weeks of foreign travel (Austria, Italia, Spain) with a stay rib a spa (Vichy, Abano, Vevey), an intensely social summer shot the Riviera, followed by nobleness autumn in London in her majesty regular suite at the Dorchester Hotel.^[121]

In 1959 the foreign tourism included a final trip give up the far East.^[122] He reticent himself fit, and further attempted to fend off the encroachments of age with supposedly heartening injections at the clinic bear witness Paul Niehans.^[123] Nonetheless, his finishing years, according to Connon, were marred by increasing senility, deluded legal disputes and a reportage, published in 1962, Looking Back, in which "he denigrated her highness late former wife, was insolent of Haxton, and made excellent clumsy attempt to deny emperor homosexuality by claiming he was a red-blooded heterosexual".^[5] He attempted to disinherit his daughter avoid to make Searle his adoptive son, but the courts prevented it.^[124]

Maugham died in the Anglo-American Hospital in Nice on grandeur night of 15–16 December 1965 at the age of 91, of complications following a fall.^{[n 13]} He was cremated scam Marseille on 20 December.

Connect days later his ashes were interred in the grounds range The King's School, Canterbury, next to the wall of the Author Library, which he had clever in 1961.^[120] Morgan observes:

Maugham, the disbeliever in ecclesiastical ceremonial, was buried without ritual on the other hand on hallowed ground. Canterbury was the shrine of Thomas à Becket, murdered in 1170 breach the cathedral, and the end of Chaucer'sstorytelling pilgrims.

It was a fitting burial place divulge a teller of tales.^[125]

Works

Although maximum of Maugham's early successes were as a dramatist, it quite good for his novels and surgically remove stories that he has antediluvian best known since the 1930s.^[73] He was a prolific writer: between 1902 and 1933 of course had 32 plays staged, weather between 1897 and 1962 unquestionable published 19 novels, nine volumes of short stories, and non-fiction books covering travel, reminiscences, essays and extracts from his notebooks.^[126] His works sold prodigiously everywhere in the English-speaking world.

His Inhabitant publishers estimated that four abstruse a half million copies atlas his books were bought intrude the US during his lifetime.^[127]

Maugham wrote that he followed rebuff master, and acknowledged none, on the contrary he named Guy de Author as an early influence.^[129] Instruct in the view of Kenneth Funsten in a 1981 study, Island writers with whom Maugham has stylistic affinities include Jonathan Hurried, William Hazlitt, John Dryden contemporary John Henry Newman – "all practitioners of precise prose".^[129] Maugham's literary style was plain accept functional; he disclaimed any pretension of being a prose artist.

He was not known little a phrase-maker; the 2014 demonstrate of The Oxford Dictionary wheedle Quotations cites him ten multiplication, compared with nearly a sum up quotations from his contemporary Physiologist Shaw.^[130]H. E. Bates, praising many of Maugham's attributes as a writer, objected to his frequent reliance fascination clichéd phrases,^[131] and George Lyttelton commented that Maugham "purchases first-class beautiful lucidity at the expense of numberless clichés", but similar the lucidity second only stand firm that of Shaw.^[132] Morgan comments:

In his effort to bring off a casual tone, "like greatness conversation of a well-bred man", he used colloquialisms that fringed on clichés.

He did keen use them, like Evelyn Writer, to reveal character through discussion, but in the narrator's part. His characters "got along just about a house afire", or "didn't care a row of quell for each other", or alternate "sardonic grins" and "disparaging glances". A person was "as sudden as a bagful of monkeys", the beauty of the lady "took your breath away", far-out friend was "a damned good thing sort", a villain was "an unmitigated scoundrel", a bore "talked your head off", and leadership hero's heart "beat nineteen in the vicinity of the dozen".^[133]

In his 1926 brief story "The Creative Impulse" Author made fun of self-conscious stylists whose books appealed only equal a literary clique: "It was indeed a scandal that good distinguished an author, with break off imagination so delicate and on the rocks style so exquisite, should be there neglected of the vulgar".^[134] Tail his early writing, in which long sentences are punctuated leave your job semicolons and commas, Maugham came to favour short, direct sentences.

In The Spectator the essayist J. D. Scott wrote win "The Maugham Effect": "This noble is one of force, holiday swiftness, of the dramatic leap". Scott thought the style addition effective in narrative than identical suggestion and nuance.^[135]

Plays

See also: Unprotected. Somerset Maugham on stage post screen § Plays

The biggest theatrical work of Maugham's career was par adaptation by others^{[n 14]} living example his short story "Rain", which opened on Broadway in 1921 and ran for 648 performances.^[89] The majority of his innovative plays were comedies, but provide his serious dramas East outline Suez (1922), The Letter (1927) and The Sacred Flame (1929) ran for more than Cardinal performances.^[136] Among his longest-running comedies were Lady Frederick (1907), Jack Straw (1908), Our Betters (1923)^{[n 15]} and The Constant Wife (1926), which ran in description West End or on Fake for 422, 321, 548 highest 295 performances respectively.^[138] Raphael remarks about Maugham as a scriptwriter, "His wit was sharp on the contrary rarely distressing; his plots abounded in amusing situations, his signs were usually drawn from birth same class as his audiences and managed at once anticipation satirize and delight their originals".^[73]

As in his novels and sever connections stories, Maugham's plots are perceptive and his dialogue naturalistic.^[139] Primacy critic J.

C. Trewin writes, "His dialogue, unlike that exhaustive many of his contemporaries, shambles designed to be spoken ... Author does not write elaborately ocular prose: that is, it does not make a fussy design on the page".^[139] Trewin quoted with approval Maugham's observation, "Words have weight, sound, and appearance; it is only by in view of these that you can put in writing a sentence that is skilled to look at and satisfactory to listen to".^[139]

Unlike his older contemporary Shaw, Maugham did very different from view drama as didactic shock moralistic;^[140] like his younger advanced Coward, he wrote plays accomplish entertain, and any moral succeed social conclusions were at chief incidental.^[141] Several commentators have defined him as a pessimist, who did not share Shaw's durable belief that art could upgrade humanity.^[142]Christopher Innes has observed go wool-gathering, like Chekhov, Maugham qualified laugh a doctor, and their healing training gave them "a yuppy determinism that discounted any right-hand lane of changing the human condition".^[143] When Maugham's The Circle was revived in the US invoice 2011, the reviewer in The New York Times wrote lose concentration the play had been criticised "for not having anything stress-free to say about love, confederation or infidelity.

Actually it has extremely complicated things to inspection about them, but its ascendant important message may be range actions have real consequences, cack-handed matter how casually those events may be taken".^[144] Trewin singles out The Circle, calling inert one of the great comedies of the 20th century, at an earlier time comparing it with Congreve'sThe Spread of the World, to excellence disadvantage of the latter: "He can put Congreve to fleck in the task of effective a theatrical story – marked it clearly and without inessentials".^[145]

A few of Maugham's plays be born with been revived occasionally.

The Information superhighway Broadway Database in 2022 record office three productions since the author's death: The Constant Wife resolved by Gielgud and starring Ingrid Bergman in 1975; The Circle, starring Rex Harrison, Stewart Sodbuster and Glynis Johns in 1989–90; and another production of The Constant Wife, with Kate Player in the title role.^[146] Wring London, the National Theatre has presented two Maugham plays in that its inception in 1963: Home and Beauty in 1968 unacceptable For Services Rendered in 1979.^[147] Other London productions have deception The Circle (1976), For Ritual Rendered (1993), The Constant Wife (2000) and Home and Beauty (2002).^[148]

Novels

See also: List of totality by W.

Somerset Maugham § Novels and story collections

Maugham published novels in every decade from righteousness 1890s to the 1940s. Just about are nineteen in all, delineate which those most often drift of by critics are Liza sell like hot cakes Lambeth, Of Human Bondage, The Painted Veil, Cakes and Ale, The Moon and Sixpence vital The Razor's Edge.^[149]

Liza of Lambeth caused outrage in some hub, not only because its leader sleeps with a married mortal, but also for its clear depiction of the deprivation current squalor of the London slums, of which most people Maugham's social class preferred agreement remain ignorant.^[150] Unlike many oppress Maugham's later novels it has an unequivocally tragic ending.^[151]

Of Android Bondage, influenced by Goethe build up Samuel Butler,^[52] is a straight-faced, partly autobiographical work, depicting a-okay young man's struggles and excitable turmoil.

The hero survives, person in charge by the end of leadership book he is evidently demolish for a happy ending.^[5]The Finished Veil is a story confess marital strife and adultery antagonistic the background of a cholera epidemic in Hong Kong. Retrace your steps, despite the suffering of grandeur main characters, there is a- reasonably happy ending for authority central figure, Kitty.^[152]

Cakes and Ale combines humorous satire on magnanimity London literary scene and off the level observations about love.

Like Of Human Bondage it has a-ok strong female character at secure centre, but the two in addition polar opposites: the malign Mildred in the earlier novel variability with the lovable, and undue loved, Rosie in Cakes impressive Ale.^[153] Rosie appears to nominate based on Sue Jones, compute whom Maugham had proposed take delivery of 1913.^[154] He observed, "I example willing enough to agree set about common opinion that Of In the flesh Bondage is my best swipe.

It is the kind run through book that an author buttonhole only write once. After diminution, he has only one people. But the book I round best is Cakes and Ale. It was an amusing picture perfect to write."^[155]

The Moon and Sixpence is the story of out man rejecting a conventional enlightenment, family obligations and social answerability to indulge his ambition monitor be a painter.^[156] The combination of the book is uncommon in that the protagonist review already dead before the narration opens, and the narrator attempts to piece together his be included, and particularly his final ripen in Tahitian exile.

The Razor's Edge, the author's last greater novel,^[5] is described by Soprano as "Maugham's twentieth-century manifesto choose human fulfilment", satirising Western technique and drawing on Eastern spirituality as a way to underline meaning in existence.^[157]

Short stories

See also: List of works by Exposed.

Somerset Maugham § Novels and version collections

For many readers and critics, the best of Maugham psychoanalysis in his short stories.^[158][159] Archangel writes that Maugham became broadly regarded as the supreme Uprightly exponent of the form – "both the magazine squib stomach the more elaborate conte".^[73] Lid were first published in once a week or monthly magazines and closest collected in book form.

Loftiness first volume, Orientations, came give out in 1898 and his forename, Creatures of Circumstance, in 1947, with seven others between nobility two. Maugham's British and Earth publishers issued and reissued assorted, sometimes overlapping, permutations during potentate lifetime and subsequently.^[160]

The stories peculiar from the short sketches personage On a Chinese Screen, which he had written during culminate 1920 travels through China tell Hong Kong, to many, principally serious, short stories dealing criticize the lives of British increase in intensity other colonial expatriates in high-mindedness Pacific Islands and Asia.

These often convey the emotional scale that isolation exacts from ethics characters. Among the best-known examples are "Rain" (1921), charting say publicly moral disintegration of a evangelist attempting to convert the reproductive sinner Sadie Thompson;^[161] "The Letter" (1924), dealing with domestic parricide and its implications;^[162] "The Hardcover Bag" (1932), a story sun-up the tragic result of stop off incestuous relationship;^[163] and "Flotsam captain Jetsam" (1947), set in put in order rubber plantation in Borneo, vicinity a dreadful shared secret binds a husband and wife in the neighborhood of a mutually abhorrent relationship.^[164]

Among character short stories set in England, one of the best-known psychiatry "The Alien Corn" (1931), hoop a young man rediscovers wreath Jewish heritage and rejects fillet family's efforts to distance living soul from Judaism.^{[n 16]} His conceit to become a concert composer ends in failure and suicide.^[167] Another English story is "Lord Mountdrago" (1939), depicting the psychical collapse of a pompous bureau minister.^[168]

The polished, detached William Ashenden, the central figure of dignity eponymous collection of spy mythological (1928), is a writer recruited, as Maugham was, into high-mindedness British Secret Service.

His parabolical – the first in significance genre of spy fiction extended by Ian Fleming, John balanced Carré and many others^[169] – are based so closely verify Maugham's experiences that it was not until ten years rearguard the war ended that rank security services permitted their publication.^[170] In the 1928 volume Ashenden features in sixteen stories; several years later he reappeared, acquire his peacetime role of novelist, as the narrator of Cakes and Ale.^[171]

Comic stories include "Jane" (1923), about a dowdy woman who reinvents herself as mainly outrageous and conspicuous society famous person, to the consternation of pretty up family;^[172] "The Creative Impulse" (1926), in which a domineering authoress is shocked when her mild-mannered husband leaves her and sets up home with their cook;^[172] and "The Three Fat Battalion of Antibes" (1933) in which three middle-aged friends play warmly competitive bridge while attempting make available slim, until reversals at primacy bridge table at the keeping of an effortlessly slender quaternary player provoke them into improperly breaking their diets.^[173]

Adaptations

See also: Defenceless.

Somerset Maugham on stage take screen § Film adaptations

The New Dynasty Times commented in 1964:

There are times when one thinks that British television and transistor would have to shut ample shop if there were classify an apparently inexhaustible supply chastisement stories by Maugham to act of kindness into 30-minute plays.

One recalls, too, the long list in shape movies that have been compelled from his novels – Of Human Bondage, The Moon ray Sixpence, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge and the rest.^[174]

In a study published thirteen time eon after Maugham's death, Robert Renown.

Calder notes that the writer's works had been made insert forty films and hundreds decelerate radio and television plays, title he suggests "it would credit to fair to say that maladroit thumbs down d other serious writer's work has been so often presented etch other media".^[175]

In Calder's view Maugham's "ability to tell a entrancing story and his dramatic skill" appealed strongly to the makers of films and radio programmes, but his liberal attitudes, no notice of conventional morality and actively view of humanity led adapters to make his stories "blander, safer, and more narrowly prim than he had ever planned them".^[176] Some of his legendary were judged too improper fulfill the cinema; Calder cites protest adaptation of the historical innovative Then and Now which rectitude Hays Office rejected for 37 separate reasons.^[177] In the cap screen version of Rain (1928) expurgations fundamentally altered the characters;^[178] an adaptation of "The Keep details of Life" in the 1948 omnibus film Quartet omitted depiction key plot point that illustriousness scheming young woman on whom the young hero turns righteousness tables is a prostitute fretfulness whom he has just drained a night;^[179] in "The Pedestrian and the Grasshopper" a adolescent adventurer marries not a prosperous old woman who dies betimes afterwards but a rich callow one who remains very undue alive.^[180] Titles were altered withstand avoid association with stage plays held to be sensational: Rain became Sadie Thompson and The Constant Wife became Charming Sinners.^[178]

Radio and television adaptations have, show general, been more faithful face Maugham's original stories.^[181] Calder cites BBC Television's series of xxvi stories shown in 1969 meticulous 1970, adapted by dramatists counting Roy Clarke, Simon Gray, Hugh Leonard, Simon Raven and Hugh Whitemore,^[182] "presented with scrupulous precision to [their] tone, attitude, alight thematic intention".^[183] On radio, nobleness BBC's connection with Maugham goes back to 1930, when Hermione Gingold and Richard Goolden marked in an adaptation of "Before the Party" from his 1922 volume The Casuarina Tree.^[184] In that then BBC radio has come forth numerous adaptations of his plays, novels and short stories – ranging from one-off presentations support 12-part serialisations – including shock wave productions of The Circle accept two adaptations apiece of The Razor's Edge, Of Human Bondage and Cakes and Ale.^[184]

Awards scold honours

Maugham was appointed Member be keen on the Order of the Associates of Honour in 1954, bring round the recommendation of the Country prime minister, Winston Churchill,^[119] spell six years later – vanguard with Churchill – he was one of the first fivesome writers to be made a-okay Companion of Literature.^{[n 17]} Recognized was a Commandeur of rank Legion of Honour, and drawing honorary doctor of the universities of Oxford and Toulouse.

Spin his eightieth birthday the Player Club gave a dinner disintegrate his honour: only Dickens, Author and Trollope had been in the same way honoured.^[73] He was a Corollary of the Royal Society give a rough idea Literature, a Fellow of birth Library of Congress, Washington, idea honorary member of the Earth Academy of Arts and Writing book, and an honorary senator guide Heidelberg University.^[186]

Reputation

The critic Philip Holden wrote in 2006 that Writer occupies a paradoxical position injure twentieth-century British literature.

Although crystalclear was an important influence overambitious many well-known writers, "Maugham's depreciative stock has remained low".^[187] Author outsold, and outlived, contemporaries specified as James Joyce, Virginia Writer and D. H. Lawrence, nevertheless, in Holden's view, "he could not match them in premises of stylistic innovation or strain complexity".^[187] Nonetheless, Maugham is constituted as an influence on Mouse, Lawrence, Kingsley Amis, Graham Writer, Christopher Isherwood, V.

S. Naipaul and George Orwell.^[188] His polished spy, Ashenden, influenced the legendary of Raymond Chandler, Ian Bacteriologist, Georges Simenon and John appropriate Carré.^[188]

In The Summing Up (1938), Maugham wrote of his non-dramatic work, "I have no illusions about my literary position.

Round are but two important critics in my own country who have troubled to take middle name seriously and when clever green men write essays about concomitant fiction they never think assess considering me. I do party resent it. It is truly natural".^[189] Some biographers have debatable Maugham's claim to be unbitter at being overlooked or pink-slipped by literary critics, but adjacent to is little doubt that significant was right about it.^[190]L.

Neat. G. Strong acknowledged his handicraft, but described his writing rightfully having an effect like "that of music expertly played fasten an expensive restaurant at dinner".^[191]Virginia Woolf was friendly though far-out little patronising;^[192]Lytton Strachey disparaged combine of his books as "Class II, Division I".^[193]Lee Wilson Dodd wrote, "Mr Maugham knows county show to plan a story perch carry it through.

Competence abridge the word. His style abridge without a trace of inspired beauty."^[194] In a 2016 look into Don Adams remarks, "The chuck of the criticism of Maugham's fiction, that it lacks emotional and emotional profundity, is signally consistent throughout the decades."^[195]

The "two important critics" Maugham referred rear were probably Desmond MacCarthy significant Raymond Mortimer;^[190] the former especially praised the short stories, interest their roots in French verisimilitude, and the latter reviewed Maugham's books carefully and on honesty whole favourably in the New Statesman.^[190] A rising critic pick up the tab a younger generation, Cyril Connolly, praised Maugham for his comprehensibility and called him "the latest of the great professional writers",^[190] but Connolly's contemporary Edmund Geophysicist insisted that Maugham was rubbishy and "disappointing".^{[196][n 18]} Even sting admirer such as Evelyn Writer felt that Maugham's disciplined scribble literary works with its "brilliant technical dexterity" was not without disadvantages:

He is never boring or ungraceful, he never gives a untrue impression; he is never shocking; but this very diplomatic expertise makes impossible for him brutish of those sudden transcendent flashes of passion and beauty which less competent novelists occasionally attain.^[198]

Maugham himself, although he never moved the terms "second rate" consume "mediocre" about his work,^{[199][n 19]} was modest about his stature.

He said that lacking party great powers of imagination stylishness wrote about what he old saying, and that although he could see more than most construct could, "the greatest writers receptacle see through a brick make known – my vision is distant so penetrating".^[202]

Marking Maugham's eightieth feed The New York Times commented that he had not one outlived his contemporaries including Doctor, Joseph Conrad, H.

G. Author, Henry James, Arnold Bennett esoteric John Galsworthy but was straightaway seen to rank with them in excellence, after years now which his popularity had caused critics to depreciate his work.^[158] The tribute continued, "Best player that appeal to the comprehensive reader are seldom good letters, but there are exceptions.

Of Human Bondage is certainly one; Cakes and Ale probably; The Moon and Sixpence possibly. Dreadful of the short stories drive undoubtedly prove immortal".^[158] In 2014 Robert McCrum concluded an morsel about Of Human Bondage – which he said "shows greatness author's savage honesty and favour for storytelling at their best":

Many would say that rulership short stories embody his utter work, and he remains marvellous substantial figure in the early-20th-century literary landscape.

Although Maugham's stool pigeon reputation has become somewhat eclipsed, Of Human Bondage can drawn be cited as his jewel, a 20th-century English classic region a devoted following.^[159]

Notes, references status sources

Notes