[143] When Maugham's The Circle was revived in the US in 2011, the reviewer in The New York Times wrote that the play had been criticised "for not having anything substantial to say about love, marriage or infidelity. [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. [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. And in one way or another however indirectly all I've written during the last twenty years has something to do with him".[109]. [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. [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. Maugham considered himself a better writer than. [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". 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. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. Died. The British ambassador, Lord Lyons, had a maternity ward set up within his embassy which was legally recognised as UK territory enabling British couples in France to circumvent the new law, and it was there that William Somerset Maugham was born on 25 January 1874. The protagonist of the story, Salvatore who is a usual fisherman's son, is intensely in love with a beautiful girl who lives on the Grande Marina. [5] He attempted to disinherit his daughter and to make Searle his adopted son, but the courts prevented it.[124]. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. As a result, they undergo many trials and change as a result or they don't, if it's a tragedy. He remained covert in his life and in his writings. 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. After all, he has only one life. "[95] Raphael suggests that Maugham now wished to write to please himself rather than others. In 1940, W Somerset Maugham was forced to flee France as the Nazis invaded. 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 became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. Maugham believed that "it is the impressions of a man's first twenty years which form him", and at the age of 53 - and extracted from his turbulent marriage to Syrie Wellcome - he had chosen to look back at his boyhood on the Kentish coast and at his early adulthood as a medical student in London. In November 1916 Maugham was asked by the intelligence service to go to the South Seas. Somerset Maugham was one of the most popular and commercially successful authors of the twentieth century. [27] In 1897 he published his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, a tale of working-class adultery and its consequences. [21] Brooks encouraged Maugham's ambitions to be a writer and introduced him to the works of Schopenhauer and Spinoza. He returned to Britain and spent three months in a sanatorium in Scotland. Explain how this statement is relevant to "Mr. Know-All". Julia came in. His domestic staff there comprised thirteen servants. He became a father and husband, marrying Syrie Wellcome in 1917, three years into an affair that produced their daughter, Liza. 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. 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". [77] When in Britain, Maugham lived with his wife at their house in Marylebone, but the couple were temperamentally incompatible, and their relationship grew increasingly fractious. "The Razor's Edge," which would be his last important work, was published in 1944. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Appearing in popular magazines such as Nash's, Collier's, Hearst's International, The Smart Set, and Cosmopolitan, his stories Who Is W. Somerset Maugham's Wife? Somerset Maugham . [134] After his early writing, in which long sentences are punctuated with semicolons and commas, Maugham came to favour short, direct sentences. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it . . It was written in 1915 and staged in New York in 1917, for a satisfactory but not unusual 112 performances, but when produced in the West End in 1923 it was played 548 times. William Somerset Maugham is one of the best known English writers of the 20th century. 'Mr. Know-All' is a heart-rending story of a big talker who saved the marriage of a modest woman. They lived together in the French Riviera, where Maugham entertained lavishly. [n 17] He was a Commandeur of the Legion of Honour, and an honorary doctor of the universities of Oxford and Toulouse. Somerset Maugham (1874 -- 1965) grew to fit Brady's bill as a writer. Maugham was miserable, both at the vicarage and at school, where he was bullied because of his small size and his stammer. After a year at Heidelberg, he entered St. Thomas medical school, London, and qualified as a doctor in 1897. He was the highest paid author of the 1930s. 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. Support your answer with examples from the story. Maugham also travelled far and wide to Europe, North America, the Far East, the South seas and beyond. It was an amusing book to write. [170] In the 1928 volume Ashenden features in sixteen stories; two years later he reappeared, in his peacetime role of writer, as the narrator of Cakes and Ale. [94] Maugham later wrote, "I grew conscious that I was no longer in touch with the public that patronises the theatre. [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". His American publishers estimated that four and a half million copies of his books were bought in the US during his lifetime.[127]. He entered the marriage from a sense of duty rather than from personal inclination, and the two quickly began to grow apart. Find The Judgment Seat by W. Somerset Maugham - 1934. [167] Another English story is "Lord Mountdrago" (1939), depicting the psychological collapse of a pompous cabinet minister. [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". "Mr Somerset Maugham's Library for School", Lyttelton and Hart-Davis (1984), pp. [36], The Making of a Saint, a historical novel, attracted less attention than Liza of Lambeth and its sales were unremarkable. [69] She returned to England and he continued with his work as a secret agent. [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. William Somerset Maugham ( IPA : /mm/ ), mer knd som W. Somerset Maugham, fdd 25 januari 1874 i Paris i Frankrike, dd 16 december 1965 i Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat nra Nice, var en betydande brittisk dramatiker, roman - och novellfrfattare . Check out our w. somerset maugham selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our literary fiction shops. [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. [82] In 192223 Maugham's next extended trip was in south and east Asia, with stops at Colombo, Rangoon, Mandalay, Bangkok and Hanoi. He was the son of a British diplomat. [78] He spent much time travelling with Haxton. Sitter associated with 115 portraits. The W. Somerset Maugham Collection features: The Moon And Sixpence Of Human Bondage He did not use them, like, There are times when one thinks that British television and radio would have to shut up shop if there were not an apparently inexhaustible supply of stories by Maugham to turn into 30-minute plays. 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. There are but two important critics in my own country who have troubled to take me seriously and when clever young men write essays about contemporary fiction they never think of considering me. Lord knew what they cost. 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. "[155], The Moon and Sixpence is the story of a man rejecting a conventional lifestyle, family obligations and social responsibility to indulge his ambition to be a painter. Rodie ale brzy zemeli, take se vrtil do Anglie k pbuznm. [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. Maugham's first successful novel was the semi-autobiographical Of Human Bondage (1915). [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. [10] Maugham never greatly liked his middle name which commemorated a great-uncle named after General Sir Henry Somerset[11] and was known by family and friends throughout his life as "Willie". [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. 27, 59, 143 and 295, Mander and Mitchenson, p. 15; and Richards, pp. [93] Despite some help from Coward in the drafting and having Ralph Richardson as star and John Gielgud as director, it ran for a modest 83 performances. , an illusion of those who have lost it as the Nazis invaded an affair that produced their,! Authors of the most popular and commercially successful authors of the most and. 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