W. Somerset Maugham
![Maugham by [[Carl Van Vechten]], 1934](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Maugham_retouched.jpg)
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 short stories were published in collections such as ''The Casuarina Tree'' (1926) and ''The Mixture as Before'' (1940); many of them have been adapted for radio, cinema and television. His great popularity and prodigious sales provoked adverse reactions from highbrow critics, many of whom sought to belittle him as merely competent. 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. Maugham's plain prose style became known for its lucidity, but his reliance on clichés attracted adverse critical comment.
During the First World War Maugham worked for the British Secret Service, later drawing on his experiences for stories published in the 1920s. Although primarily homosexual, he attempted to conform to some extent with the norms of his day. After a three-year affair with Syrie Wellcome which produced their daughter, Liza, they married in 1917. The marriage lasted for twelve years, but before, during and after it, Maugham's principal partner was a younger man, Gerald Haxton. Together they made extended visits to Asia, the South Seas and other destinations; Maugham gathered material for his fiction wherever they went. They lived together in the French Riviera, where Maugham entertained lavishly. After Haxton's death in 1944, Alan Searle became Maugham's secretary-companion for the rest of the author's life. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War, and his last years were marred by senility. He died at the age of 91. Provided by Wikipedia
1
Published: 2013.
Superior document: Oberon modern plays
Links: Get full text