. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), English playwright and author wrote Of Human Bondage (1915); He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. Gamer who has gained fame for her Sommerset Twitch channel. Entdecke Where to Watch Birds in Somerset, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire by Ken Hall (Eng in groer Auswahl Vergleichen Angebote und Preise Online kaufen bei eBay Kostenlose Lieferung fr viele Artikel! 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. He traveled in Spain and Italy and in 1908 achieved a theatrical triumphfour plays running in London at oncethat brought him financial security. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. S omerset M augham is a singular figure in twentieth-century English literature. In The Spectator the critic J. D. Scott wrote of "The Maugham Effect": "This quality is one of force, of swiftness, of the dramatic leap". After Haxton's death in 1944, Alan Searle became Maugham's secretary-companion for the rest of the author's life. 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. Maugham, (William) Somerset (1874-1965) British novelist, short-story writer, and dramatist, b. France. [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. Author: w Somerset 1874-1965 Maugham. He has been a verger in St. Peter's Neville Square Church, doing his duties with great enjoyment and dedication. Born in the British Embassy in Paris, France (legally considered British soil), Maugham endured a traumatic childhood, orphaned at ten when his mother died from tuberculosis and his father died from cancer. Maugham's plain prose style became known for its lucidity, but his reliance on clichs attracted adverse critical comment. [105] His most substantial book from the war years was The Razor's Edge; he found writing it unusually tiring he was seventy when it was completed and he vowed it would be the last long novel he wrote. Here are the possible solutions for "W Somerset Maugham's 1915 novel; the subject of several films" clue. [20] He took part in the adaptation for the cinema of some of his short stories, Quartet (1948), Trio (1950) and Encore (1951), in all of which he appeared, contributing on-screen introductions. [n 13] He was cremated in Marseille on 20 December. W. Somerset Maugham; April 1948 Issue; The Brothers Karamazov. [5][n 6], After the birth of his daughter, Maugham moved to Switzerland. [122] He kept himself fit, and further attempted to fend off the encroachments of age with supposedly rejuvenating injections at the clinic of Paul Niehans. 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. [130] H.E.Bates, praising many of Maugham's attributes as a writer, objected to his frequent reliance on clichd phrases,[131] and George Lyttelton commented that Maugham "purchases a beautiful lucidity at the cost of numberless clichs", but rated the lucidity second only to that of Shaw. [91] Hastings quotes a contemporary's view that Kear was Maugham's revenge on Walpole for "a stolen boyfriend, an unrequited love and an old canker of jealousy".[90]. At the start of the same war William Somerset Maugham, who chronicled my mentor's life, joined a Red Cross unit in France and served as an ambulance driver, becoming one of what later became to be known as the Literary Ambulance Drivers. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. He told his nephew Robin, "I tried to persuade myself that I was three-quarters normal and that only a quarter of me was queer whereas really it was the other way round". During World War I he worked as a secret agent. [188] His urbane spy, Ashenden, influenced the stories of Raymond Chandler, Ian Fleming, Georges Simenon and John le Carr. Wilson later admitted that he had not read, Meyers, p. 9; Maugham (1975), p. 15; Coward, pp. [47] In 1913 he proposed to the actress Sue Jones, daughter of the playwright Henry Arthur Jones;[48] she declined his offer. I cannot tell you how I loathe the theatre. [79], In late 1920 Maugham and Haxton set out on a trip that lasted more than a year. [34] He based himself in Seville, where he grew a moustache, smoked cigars, took lessons in the guitar,[34] and developed a passion for "a young thing with green eyes and a gay smile"[35] (gender carefully unspecified, as Hastings comments). [171], Comic stories include "Jane" (1923), about a dowdy widow who reinvents herself as an outrageous and conspicuous society figure, to the consternation of her 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 Women of Antibes" (1933) in which three middle-aged friends play highly competitive bridge while attempting to slim, until reversals at the bridge table at the hands of an effortlessly slender fourth player provoke them into extravagantly breaking their diets. The Evening Standard commented that there had not been so powerful a story of slum life since Rudyard Kipling's The Record of Badalia Herodsfoot (1890), and praised the author's "vividness and knowledge extraordinary gift of directness and concentration His characters have an astounding amount of vitality". 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. [188], In The Summing Up (1938), Maugham wrote of his non-dramatic work, "I have no illusions about my literary position. Maugham was a well-known English playwright, novelist and short story writer. Rodie ale brzy zemeli, take se vrtil do Anglie k pbuznm. Marking Maugham's eightieth birthday The New York Times commented that he had not only outlived his contemporaries including Shaw, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, Henry James, Arnold Bennett and John Galsworthy but was now seen to rank with them in excellence, after years in which his popularity had caused critics to depreciate his work. The adaptation was by John Colton and Clemence Randolph. [112] Raphael calls him "a man of more reliable stamp" than Haxton;[73] Meyers describes him as "sober, efficient, honest and gentle". [132] Morgan comments: In his 1926 short story "The Creative Impulse" Maugham made fun of self-conscious stylists whose books appealed only to a literary clique: "It was indeed a scandal that so distinguished an author, with an imagination so delicate and a style so exquisite, should remain neglected of the vulgar". [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". 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. [145], A few of Maugham's plays have been revived occasionally. The critic John Sutherland says of it: According to some of Maugham's intimates, the main female character, the manipulative Mildred, was based on "a youth, probably a rent boy, with whom he became infatuated". [n 10] When the Second World War began in 1939 he stayed in his home as long as he could, but in June 1940 France surrendered; knowing himself to be proscribed by the Nazis (Goebbels denounced him personally) Maugham made his way to England in uncomfortable conditions on a coal freighter from Nice. After all, he has only one life. [190] A rising critic of a younger generation, Cyril Connolly, praised Maugham for his lucidity and called him "the last of the great professional writers",[190] but Connolly's contemporary Edmund Wilson insisted that Maugham was second-rate and "disappointing". Size 8vo - over 7 - 9" tall; Keywords Limited edition; Size 8vo - over 7 - 9\" tall; Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different. [176] Some of his stories were judged too improper for the cinema; Calder cites an adaptation of the historical novel Then and Now which the Hays Office rejected for thirty-seven separate reasons. [40] It ran for 422 performances at five different West End theatres. Though he wore nothing but an exiguous loincloth he looked neat, very clean and almost dapper. [139] The critic J. C. Trewin writes, "His dialogue, unlike that of many of his contemporaries, is designed to be spoken Maugham does not write elaborately visual prose: that is, it does not make a fussy pattern on the page". Incidentally, W. Somerset Maugham inspired some mimesis of his own. Alternate titles: William Somerset Maugham. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War, and his last years were marred by senility. 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. 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. Again, despite the suffering of the main characters, there is a reasonably happy ending for the central figure, Kitty. Somerset Maugham (1874 -- 1965) grew to fit Brady's bill as a writer. Number of Pages: Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Plays; Volume 1 by W Somerset 1874-1965 Maugham at the best online prices at eBay! Born in Paris, where his father ran a law firm, he was orphaned by the age of ten and packed off to England, where his three older brothers were already. He was an 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. Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 - 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly A Room with a View (1908), How. He became a father and husband, marrying Syrie Wellcome in 1917, three years into an affair that produced their daughter, Liza. [22] A family friend found Maugham a position in an accountant's office in London, which he endured for a month before resigning. [83], In Maugham's absence his wife found an occupation, becoming a sought-after interior designer. He was born at the British Embassy in Paris. In Somerset Maugham's novel "The Moon and Sixpence," there is a scene in which Dirk Stroeve, a painter, visits an art dealer to inquire after the work of . I am done with playwriting. 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. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest-paid author during the 1930s. Authors. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/W-Somerset-Maugham, Spartacus Educational - Biography of William Somerset Maugham, W. Somerset Maugham - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Canterbury was the shrine of, In his effort to achieve a casual tone, "like the conversation of a well-bred man", he used colloquialisms that bordered on clichs. Connon writes, "He was seen by some as a near saint and by others, particularly the Maugham family, as a villain";[5] Hastings labels him "a podgy Iago constantly briefing against [Syrie and Liza]", and quotes Alan Pryce-Jones's summary: "an intriguer, a schemer with a keen eye to his own advantage, a troublemaker". What you give an audience is all your own; the rest of us have to content ourselves with at the best an approximation of what we see in the minds eye. [36], The Making of a Saint, a historical novel, attracted less attention than Liza of Lambeth and its sales were unremarkable. Somerset Maugham became famous for his many novels, short stories, travel books, and plays. The Razor's Edge by W Somerset Maugham (Bill Murray Cover) (Paperback, Fiction) 1984. The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love. [167] Another English story is "Lord Mountdrago" (1939), depicting the psychological collapse of a pompous cabinet minister. He published seventy-eight books -- including the undisputed classics Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge -- which sold over 40 million copies in his lifetime. [8][9] The second son, Frederic, became a barrister, and had a distinguished legal career in Britain The Times described him as "a great legal figure" serving as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary (19351938) and Lord Chancellor (19381939). First, Maugham died two years before Britain's decriminalization in 1967 of same-gender sex behavior. 1 Childhood and education; 2 Career. By the early 1930s Maugham had grown tired of the theatre. [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. He was not only a novelist, but also a one of the most successful dramatist and short-story writers. After a year at Heidelberg, he entered St. Thomas medical school, London, and qualified as a doctor in 1897. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s. [150] Unlike many of Maugham's later novels it has an unequivocally tragic ending. He had a slight limp, and he walked slowly, leant on a stick. 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