He found his uncle and aunt well-meaning but remote by contrast with the loving warmth of his home in Paris; he became shy and developed a stammer that stayed with him all his life. The marriage lasted for twelve years, but before, during and after it, Maugham's principal partner was a younger man, Gerald Haxton. "Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division", Coward, p. 226; and Mander and Mitchenson, pp. Somerset Maugham . 3 synonyms for Somerset Maugham: Maugham, W. Somerset Maugham, William Somerset Maugham. Her concentration on her work briefly lessened the domestic tensions at the couple's house when Maugham was in residence. Author: w Somerset 1874-1965 Maugham. Raphael comments that there is no firm evidence for this,[5][53] and Meyers suggests that she is based on Harry Phillips, a young man whom Maugham had taken to Paris as, nominally, his secretary for a prolonged stay in 1905. [187] Maugham outsold, and outlived, contemporaries such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence, but, in Holden's view, "he could not match them in terms of stylistic innovation or thematic complexity". William Somerset Maugham CH was an English playwright, novelist, and short story writer. [1] [141] Several commentators have characterised him as a pessimist, who did not share Shaw's optimistic belief that art could improve humanity. In addition, Carey has a. By Jeffrey Meyers. Somerset Maugham felt that his stories had to have a moral and teach people tolerance, wisdom and compassion. I did so with relief. He was the son of a British diplomat. William Somerset Maugham. Used; Condition Used - Good ISBN 13 9780140185232 He wrote near the opening of the novel: "it is impossible always to give the exact unexpurgated words of Liza and the other personages of the story; the reader is therefore entreated with his thoughts to piece out the necessary imperfections of the dialogue". After all, he has only one life. ENVOI William Somerset Maugham 25 January 1874 - 16 December 1965) was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. [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". [56] The tide of opinion was turned by the influential American novelist and critic Theodore Dreiser, who called Maugham a great artist and the book a work of genius, of the utmost importance, comparable to a Beethoven symphony. [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. This was Maugham's longest-running original play, but a dramatisation of his short story. "[98] He visited the Hindu sage Ramana Maharishi at his ashram, and later used him as the model for the spiritual guru of his 1944 novel The Razor's Edge. [n 13] He was cremated in Marseille on 20 December. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War, and his last years were marred by senility. [73] He saw little of Haxton, who undertook war work in Washington DC. For the next year and a half he studied literature, philosophy and German. He successfully sued for divorce in 1916, citing Maugham as co-respondent. [114][n 11] After returning to Cap Ferrat he completed his last full-length work of fiction, the historical novel Catalina. William Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874- 16 December 1965) was an English novelist, short story writer and playwright. Again, despite the suffering of the main characters, there is a reasonably happy ending for the central figure, Kitty. His work was popular for his simple style of writing, as well as his sharp and accurate understanding and judgment of human nature. [150] Unlike many of Maugham's later novels it has an unequivocally tragic ending. In his teens he became a lifelong non-believer. William Somerset Maugham (pronounced mawm), was an English novelist, playwright and a short story writer. . [5] Maugham's father, Robert Ormond Maugham (18231884), was a prosperous solicitor, based in Paris;[6] his wife, Edith Mary, ne Snell, lived most of her life in France, where all the couple's children were born. I do not resent it. [110] He came from Bermondsey, a poor district of London. First, Maugham died two years before Britain's decriminalization in 1967 of same-gender sex behavior. He told Nol Coward in 1933: Maugham's thirty-second and last play was Sheppey (1933). [72] In the same year Maugham published one of his best-known novels,[73] The Moon and Sixpence, about a respectable stockbroker who rebels against conformity, abandons his wife and children, flees to Tahiti and becomes a painter. [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". Maugham's short story "The Verger" is a tale about a simple man Albert Edward Foreman. Omissions? [42], Maugham later said that he made comparatively little money from this unprecedented theatrical achievement, but it made his reputation. [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. Who Is W. Somerset Maugham's Wife? William Somerset Maugham, better known as W. Somerset Maugham, was born on January 25, 1874, Paris, France. His great popularity and prodigious sales provoked adverse reactions from highbrow critics, many of whom sought to belittle him as merely competent. The W. Somerset Maugham Collection features: The Moon And Sixpence Of Human Bondage [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. It is the kind of book that an author can only write once. [186], The critic Philip Holden wrote in 2006 that Maugham occupies a paradoxical position in twentieth-century British literature. "Hulloa! [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". They lived together in the French Riviera, where Maugham entertained lavishly. [5] He attempted to disinherit his daughter and to make Searle his adopted son, but the courts prevented it.[124]. Topics. Maugham, who had been writing steadily since he was 15, intended to make his career as an author, but he dared not tell his guardian. After another long trip to the Far East, he agreed with Syrie that they would live separately, she in London and he at Cap Ferrat in the south of France. Publisher: Franklin Classics. [177] In the first screen version of Rain (1928) expurgations fundamentally altered the characters;[178] an adaptation of "The Facts of Life" in the 1948 omnibus film Quartet omitted the key plot point that the scheming young woman on whom the young hero turns the tables is a prostitute with whom he has just spent a night;[179] in "The Ant and the Grasshopper" a young adventurer marries not a rich old woman who dies soon afterwards but a rich young one who remains very much alive. The "two important critics" Maugham referred to were probably Desmond MacCarthy and Raymond Mortimer;[190] the former particularly praised the short stories, tracing their roots in French naturalism, and the latter reviewed Maugham's books carefully and on the whole favourably in the New Statesman. Of Human Bondage is certainly one; Cakes and Ale probably; The Moon and Sixpence possibly. Peaches were not in season then. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. "The Razor's Edge," which would be his last important work, was published in 1944. [31] The first print run sold out within three weeks and a reprint was quickly arranged. In the post-war era, Maugham settled into a pattern of life that changed little from year to year: In 1959 the foreign travel included a final trip to the far East. 3 Several were transformed into films. Maugham wrote of Haxton: After the South Seas trip Maugham visited the US and was joined by Syrie. It drew its details from his obstetric duties in South London slums. Alternate titles: William Somerset Maugham. Maugham was a well-known English playwright, novelist and short story writer. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. [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. View interactive tab. ]' t.r. [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". 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. [50], By 1914 Maugham was famous, with thirteen plays and eight novels completed. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief; I saw the dark lines that despair drew on a face. The protagonist of the story is Roger Charing, a tall, handsome, rich, experienced middle-aged man. After the war he resumed his interrupted travels and, in 1928, bought a villa on Cape Ferrat in the south of France, which became his permanent home. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. 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. More like this. [73] It was well received: reviewers called it "extraordinarily powerful and interesting",[74] and "a triumph [that] has given me such pleasure and entertainment as rarely comes my way";[75] one described it as "an exhibition of the beast in man, done with such perfect art that it is beyond praise". In the weeks before the war began, Maugham had been completing his novel Of Human Bondage, a Bildungsroman with substantial autobiographical elements. [193] Lee Wilson Dodd wrote, "Mr Maugham knows how to plan a story and carry it through. 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