A British playwright, novelist and short story writer William Somerset Maugham, better known as W. Somerset Maugham, was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s. Commercial success with high book sales, successful theatre productions and a string of film adaptations, backed by astute stock market investments, allowed Maugham to live a ver... Read More
The highest paid author during the 1930s William Somerset Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle after both of his parents died before he was ten. For five years he studied medicine at the medical school of St Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth. The initial run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time. During the First World War, he ser... Read More
Nobody would dispute that William Somerset Maugham was a professional writer. He himself saw that as the only way to write, in order to be able to produce a body of meaningful work that would contribute to the field of literature. Besides the exigencies he puts on the writer, he also outlines the essential qualities of the critic, which are indeed demanding. W. Somerset Maugham was among the mo... Read More
William Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. Born in the British Embassy in Paris, where his father worked, Maugham was an orphan by the age of ten. He was raised by an uncle, who tried to persuade the youngster to become an accountant or parson; Maugham instead trained as a doctor, although he never practised professionally, as his first novel, Liza of La... Read More
Cakes and Ale, or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard is a novel by the British author W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham drew his title from the remark of Sir Toby Belch to Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Late in life, Somerset Maugham claimed that this was the favourite among his novels and it is easy to... Read More
W. Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. A year after his first novel Liza of Lambeth was published Maugham began contributing to magazines and periodicals; initially, these were short stories, but he also wrote opinion pieces, non-fictional and autobiographical work, and letters. Much of his non-fictional writing was published in book form. The Narrow Corn... Read More
William Somerset Maugham, British playwright and novelist, was one of the most reputed and well-known writers of his era, and one of the highest-paid authors of his time. His work was popular for his simple style of writing, as well as his sharp and accurate understanding and judgment of human nature. An Official Position is a short story about crime and justice. Louis Remire, convicted of kill... Read More
William Somerset Maugham was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was one of the most significant travel writers of the inter-war years, and can be compared with contemporaries such as Evelyn Waugh and Freya Stark. His best efforts in this line include The Gentleman in the Parlour, dealing with a journey through Burma, Siam, Cambodia and Vietnam, and On a Chinese Screen, a... Read More
British novelist, playwright, short-story writer, Somerset Maugham was the highest paid author in the world in the 1930s. Despite his popularity, Maugham did not gain serious recognition from his contemporaries. In many of his novels, the setting is international and the stories are told in a clear, economical style. His thirst to see the world was evidenced by the fact that, disguising himself... Read More
When you hear the phrase "spy fiction," two words slide into your mind: James Bond. Yet some of our very finest literary writers, such as Joseph Conrad, Norman Mailer and W. Somerset Maugham, also have been drawn to the moral ambiguity of the cloak-and-dagger world. Ashenden, or the British Agent is a 1928 collection of loosely linked stories. The British Agent is founded on Maugham's experienc... Read More