William ('W.') Somerset Maugham. They lived together in the French Riviera, where Maugham entertained lavishly. This is a social-psychological novel that reveals the problem of relations between men and women in bourgeois society, depicts the psychological portraits of characters, and describes their feelings, emotions and thoughts as well. Many portray the conflict of Europeans in alien surroundings that provoke strong emotions, and Maughams skill in handling plot, in the manner of Guy de Maupassant, is distinguished by economy and suspense. [5], In 1915 Syrie Wellcome became pregnant, and in September, while Maugham was on leave to be with her, she gave birth to their only child, Mary Elizabeth, known as Liza. [21] Brooks encouraged Maugham's ambitions to be a writer and introduced him to the works of Schopenhauer and Spinoza. He entered the marriage from a sense of duty rather than from personal inclination, and the two quickly began to grow apart. [119] He was widely understood in literary circles to have turned down a knighthood and to have hankered after the more prestigious and exclusive British honour, the Order of Merit, saying to friends that the CH "means 'Well done, but'". Maugham further damaged his own reputation by denying that another character, Alroy Kear a superficial novelist of more pushy ambition than literary talent was a caricature of Hugh Walpole. [42], Maugham later said that he made comparatively little money from this unprecedented theatrical achievement, but it made his reputation. Maugham's job was to counter German propaganda, and to encourage the moderate republican Russian government under Alexander Kerensky to continue fighting. [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. [94] Maugham later wrote, "I grew conscious that I was no longer in touch with the public that patronises the theatre. Peaches were not in season then. 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. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. [116] He did the same on American television, introducing the Somerset Maugham Theater series, which a reviewer said enjoyed "tremendous popularity and has won for him an audience of millions of enthusiastic fans". [147] Other London productions have included The Circle (1976), For Services Rendered (1993), The Constant Wife (2000) and Home and Beauty (2002). Somerset Maugham (1874 -- 1965) grew to fit Brady's bill as a writer. In 1940, W Somerset Maugham was forced to flee France as the Nazis invaded. [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. W. Somerset Maugham (The Moon and Sixpence) " He did not care if she was heartless, vicious and vulgar, stupid and grasping, he loved her. Description: Portrait of William Somerset Maugham: Date: 26 May 1934: Source Tuning: E A D G B E. Capo: no capo. [99], Throughout the decade Maugham, with Haxton in attendance, lived and entertained lavishly at his house on Cap Ferrat, the Villa La Mauresque. 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". Although Maugham's former reputation has become somewhat eclipsed. [187] Nonetheless, Maugham is recognised as an influence on Coward, Lawrence, Kingsley Amis, Graham Greene, Christopher Isherwood, V. S. Naipaul and George Orwell. 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. 75 Copy quote. [27] In 1897 he published his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, a tale of working-class adultery and its consequences. In his teens he became a lifelong non-believer. Rodie ale brzy zemeli, take se vrtil do Anglie k pbuznm. [85] They divorced in 1929. [188] His urbane spy, Ashenden, influenced the stories of Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, Georges Simenon and John le Carr. the son of a tailor, he dropped his aitches like one of the characters in, Winter and spring at the Mauresque, a few weeks of foreign travel (Austria, Italy, Spain) with a stay at a spa (, Maugham, the disbeliever in ecclesiastical ritual, was buried without ritual but on hallowed ground. He moved to the United States where he led a very quiet life and went back after the war in 1944. And in one way or another however indirectly all I've written during the last twenty years has something to do with him".[109]. MR. KNOW-ALL / Somerset Maugham () Bridging Text and Context: Write 80 - 100 words. "Mr Somerset Maugham's Library for School", Lyttelton and Hart-Davis (1984), pp. During World War I he worked as a secret agent. In The Summing Up (1938) and A Writers Notebook (1949) Maugham explains his philosophy of life as a resigned atheism and a certain skepticism about the extent of mans innate goodness and intelligence; it is this that gives his work its astringent cynicism. "The Razor's Edge," which would be his last important work, was published in 1944. [n 16] His aspiration to become a concert pianist ends in failure and suicide. [191] Virginia Woolf was friendly though a little patronising;[192] Lytton Strachey disparaged one of his books as "Class II, Division I". Incidentally, W. Somerset Maugham inspired some mimesis of his own. [67] He was helped in this by Haxton extrovert and gregarious in contrast with Maugham's shyness who became what Morgan terms an "intermediary with the outside world". What are synonyms for Somerset Maugham? He traveled in Spain and Italy and in 1908 achieved a theatrical triumphfour plays running in London at oncethat brought him financial security. [178], Radio and television adaptations have, in general, been more faithful to Maugham's original stories. "Hulloa! Synonyms for Somerset Maugham in Free Thesaurus. [49] In 1914 he began an affair with Syrie Wellcome, whom he had known since 1910. [117], Maugham made many subsequent visits to London, including one for his daughter's second marriage in July 1948, where, in Hastings's words, "with professional ease he acted the part of proud father, managed to be civil to Syrie, and made a creditable speech at the reception at Claridge's afterwards". This ability is sometimes reflected in the characters that populate his writings. While we were waiting for the coffee, the head waiter, with a smile on his false face, came up to us bearing a large basket full of huge peaches. 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. [186], The critic Philip Holden wrote in 2006 that Maugham occupies a paradoxical position in twentieth-century British literature. During the First World War Maugham worked for the British Secret Service, later drawing on his experiences for stories published in the 1920s. His reputation as a novelist rests primarily on four books: Of Human Bondage (1915), a semi-autobiographical account of a young medical students painful progress toward maturity; The Moon and Sixpence (1919), an account of an unconventional artist, suggested by the life of Paul Gauguin; Cakes and Ale (1930), the story of a famous novelist, which is thought to contain caricatures of Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole; and The Razors Edge (1944), the story of a young American war veterans quest for a satisfying way of life. Maugham, (William) Somerset (1874-1965) British novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist, b. France. Who Is W. Somerset Maugham's Wife? Popular British novelist, playwright, short-story writer and the highest-paid author in the world in the 1930s, Somerset Maugham graduated in 1897 from St. Thomas' Medical School and qualified as a doctor, but abandoned medicine after the success of his first novels and plays. [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". Maugham usually published his works under the name of W. Somerset Maugham. Before Fame. Gosselyn was a tall, stoutish, elderly woman, much taller than her husband, who gave you the impression that she was always trying to diminish her height. Maugham considered himself a better writer than. W. Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. The Maharshi was of average height for an Indian, of a dark honey colour with close-cropped white hair and a close-cropped white beard. It was a departure from his previous style; its moral ambiguity and equivocal ending puzzled the critics and the public. [154] He observed, "I am willing enough to agree with common opinion that Of Human Bondage is my best work. [1] [134] After his early writing, in which long sentences are punctuated with semicolons and commas, Maugham came to favour short, direct sentences. [103], Maugham spent most of the war years in the US, based for much of the time at a comfortable house on the estate of his American publisher, Nelson Doubleday. Maugham's mother Edith Mary Snell had tuberculosis, and died of the disease when he was eight; his father died two years later, of cancer. 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. "Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division", Coward, p. 226; and Mander and Mitchenson, pp. W. Somerset Maugham, in full William Somerset Maugham, (born Jan. 25, 1874, Paris, Francedied Dec. 16, 1965, Nice), English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer whose work is characterized by a clear unadorned style, cosmopolitan settings, and a shrewd understanding of human nature. William Somerset Maugham (pronounced mawm), was an English novelist, playwright and a short story writer. 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. 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. [65] Samoa was regarded as crucial to Britain's strategic interests, and Maugham's task was to gather information about the island's powerful radio transmitter and the threat from German military and naval forces in the region. . This was Alan Searle, whom Maugham had known since 1928, when Searle was twenty-three. [5] Maugham wrote his first book while in Heidelberg, a biography of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer, but it was not accepted for publication and the author destroyed the manuscript. E.M. Forster. Her concentration on her work briefly lessened the domestic tensions at the couple's house when Maugham was in residence. 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. [110] He came from Bermondsey, a poor district of London. The Internet Broadway Database in 2022 records three productions since the author's death: The Constant Wife directed by Gielgud and starring Ingrid Bergman in 1975; The Circle, starring Rex Harrison, Stewart Granger and Glynis Johns in 198990; and another production of The Constant Wife, with Kate Burton in the title role. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War, and his last years were marred by senility. He was one of the most popular authors of his era, and reputedly the highest paid of his profession during the 1930s. In a 2004 biography of Maugham, Jeffrey Meyers comments, "His stammer, a psychological and physical handicap, and his gradual awareness of his homosexuality made him furtive and secretive". The play was first presented in New York in 1917, running for 112 performances. [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. Culture; Somerset Maugham; Reuse this content. Among the best-known examples are "Rain" (1921), charting the moral disintegration of a missionary attempting to convert the sexual sinner Sadie Thompson;[161] "The Letter" (1924), dealing with domestic murder and its implications;[162] "The Book Bag" (1932), a story of the tragic result of an incestuous relationship;[163] and "Flotsam and Jetsam" (1947), set in a rubber plantation in Borneo, where a dreadful shared secret binds a husband and wife to a mutually abhorrent relationship. It is the kind of book that an author can only write once. Most viewed. Lord knew what they cost. [61] He was recruited by Sir John Wallinger, a friend of Syrie, portrayed as the spymaster "R" in the Ashenden stories Maugham wrote after the war. Publisher: Franklin Classics. [n 12] There is some suggestion that his known homosexuality may have militated against his receiving the higher honour.[119]. Maugham wants the readers to draw their own conclusion about the characters and events described in his novels. [96], Maugham's days of lengthy trips to distant places were mostly behind him, but at Kipling's suggestion he sailed to the West Indies in 1936. Somerset Maugham became famous for his many novels, short stories, travel books, and plays. [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". I cannot tell you how I loathe the theatre. W. Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 - 16 December 1965) first claimed fame as a playwright and novelist, but he became best known in the 1920's and 1930's the world over as an international traveler and short-story writer. Somerset Maugham ? Biography of William Somerset Maugham (excerpt) William Somerset Maugham, CH (January 25, 1874 - December 16, 1965) was an English playwright, novelist, and theatre 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". He was not only a novelist, but also a one of the most successful dramatist and short-story writers. [156] The structure of the book is unusual in that the protagonist is already dead before the novel opens, and the narrator attempts to piece together his story, and particularly his final years in Tahitian exile. [102] Haxton, as a citizen of neutral America, was not in immediate peril from the Germans and remained at the villa, securing it and its contents as far as possible, before making his way via Lisbon to New York. After all, he has only one life. Although primarily homosexual, he attempted to conform to some extent with the norms of his day. [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. Item Weight: 717g. 1965. It is very natural". He achieved fame initially as a dramatist with plays such as Lady Frederick (1912) and The Circle (1921). Raised by an uncle, the remainder of . He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. [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. 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". [73] Most were first published in weekly or monthly magazines and later collected in book form. They are motivated by their passions or emotions and by their attempts to control their destinies, not by an ideology or set of ideals. 245246. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. Maugham wrote that he followed no master, and acknowledged none, but he named Guy de Maupassant as an early influence. Two days later his ashes were interred in the grounds of The King's School, Canterbury, beside the wall of the Maugham Library, which he had endowed in 1961. It is high time for them then to retire. [5], Shortly before the birth of the Maughams' fourth son the government of France proposed a new law under which all boys born on French soil to foreign parents would automatically be French citizens and liable to conscription for military service. [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. Maugham was born in the English embassy in Paris; the youngest son, he was nicknamed "Willie" by his beautiful mother, Edith . Omissions? [104] As always, Maugham wrote continually. They visited the Far East together in 191920, keeping Maugham away from home for six months. [139], Unlike his elder contemporary Shaw, Maugham did not view drama as didactic or moralistic;[140] like his younger contemporary Coward, he wrote plays to entertain, and any moral or social conclusions were at most incidental. 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. [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". He studied in Dune and qualified as a doctor, but found his calling in writing. 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. Second, Maugham was what Northrop Frye. Syrie Wellcome. The possibility became a certainty when in November 1944, after a six-month illness initially diagnosed as pleurisy, Haxton died of tuberculosis. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Between 1903 and 1906 he wrote two more plays, a travel book and two novels, but his next big commercial and critical success did not come until October 1907, when his comedy Lady Frederick opened at the Court Theatre in London. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. [16][n 4], From 1885 to 1890 Maugham attended The King's School, Canterbury, where he was regarded as an outsider and teased for his poor English (French had been his first language), his short stature, his stammer, and his lack of interest in sport. Author dvdnt [pro] 132. [62] His covert job, which was in violation of Switzerland's neutrality laws,[n 7] was to coordinate the work of British agents in enemy territory and dispatch their information to London. These often convey the emotional toll that isolation exacts from the characters. [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. He found Mediterranean lands much to his liking, for what his biographer Frederic Raphael calls their "douceur de vivre missing under grim English skies". [32] Maugham qualified as a physician the month after the publication of Liza of Lambeth but he immediately abandoned medicine and embarked on his 65-year career as a writer. [31] The first print run sold out within three weeks and a reprint was quickly arranged. Story Salvatore by W. Somerset MaughamIntroduction, Theme and Summary The story deals with love of a couple never going to be united. Somerset Maugham 5 , 5 , 6 , 1 Somerset Maugham. He later said that for him her loss was "a wound that never entirely healed" and even in old age he kept her photograph at his bedside. The early death of his parents and his consequent exile from home and country gave Somerset Maugham a wretched start in life. [193] Lee Wilson Dodd wrote, "Mr Maugham knows how to plan a story and carry it through. [62] In his overt capacity as an author he wrote Caroline, a three-act comedy, which opened in February 1916 at the New Theatre, London, with Irene Vanbrugh in the title role.[64]. I did so with relief. [25] The local physician in Whitstable suggested the medical profession, and Maugham's uncle agreed. I am done with playwriting. [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". Crowley took offence and wrote a critique of the novel in Vanity Fair, charging Maugham with "varied, shameless and extensive" plagiarism. Sitter associated with 115 portraits. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s. He has been a verger in St. Peter's Neville Square Church, doing his duties with great enjoyment and dedication. This website uses cookies. 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. [160], The stories range from the short sketches of On a Chinese Screen, which he had written during his 1920 travels through China and Hong Kong, to many, mostly serious, short stories dealing with the lives of British and other colonial expatriates in the Pacific Islands and Asia. [40] It ran for 422 performances at five different West End theatres. 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