[141] Several commentators have characterised him as a pessimist, who did not share Shaw's optimistic belief that art could improve humanity. 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. [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. He was raised by his aunt and uncle, and bullied by children at school. 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. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. William Somerset Maugham, better known as W. Somerset Maugham, was born on January 25, 1874, Paris, France. 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. Even before Haxton's mortal illness, Maugham had already chosen a replacement as secretary-companion, in anticipation that Haxton would not return to live at La Mauresque. His lifestyle was modest: he felt that despite his considerable wealth he should not live luxuriously while Britain was enduring wartime privations. [50], By 1914 Maugham was famous, with thirteen plays and eight novels completed. Synonyms for Somerset Maugham in Free Thesaurus. ENVOI William Somerset Maugham 25 January 1874 - 16 December 1965) was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. Maugham, who had been writing steadily since he was 15, intended to make his career as an author, but he dared not tell his guardian. 245246. [n 16] His aspiration to become a concert pianist ends in failure and suicide. After all, he has only one life. . 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. Today's crossword puzzle clue is a general knowledge one: W Somerset Maugham's 1915 novel; the subject of several films. Check out our w. somerset maugham selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our literary fiction shops. Although Maugham's former reputation has become somewhat eclipsed. [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". Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Support your answer with examples from the story. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. (g. 1917-1929) Barn. William ('W.') Somerset Maugham. Postscript on 5/13 : I thought the name Joo Cezar de Castro Rocha sounded familiar - he's one of Ren Girard . [106], Haxton was holding down a responsible job in Washington and enjoying his new independence and self-reliance. Download Pdf. Maugham based his characters upon people whom he had known or whose lives he had somehow come to know; their actions are presented with consummate realism. On his eightieth birthday the Garrick Club gave a dinner in his honour: only Dickens, Thackeray and Trollope had been similarly honoured. An instinctive and magnificent storyteller, Somerset Maugham was one of the most popular and successful writers of his time. [65] He was reunited with Haxton, who joined him as secretary-companion. Omissions? Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Before Fame. 75 Copy quote. Appearing in popular magazines such as Nash's, Collier's, Hearst's International, The Smart Set, and Cosmopolitan, his stories His first fiction was the critically praised naturalist novel of London slum life, Liza of Lambeth, which was published in 1897, when Maugham was 23 and completing his medical training at London's St Thomas's Hospital. [14], After spending the first ten years of his life in Paris, Maugham found an unwelcome contrast in life at Whitstable, which according to his biographer Ted Morgan "represented social obligation and conformity, the narrow-minded provincialism of nineteenth-century small-town English life". Gamer who has gained fame for her Sommerset Twitch channel. During his time in Heidelberg he had his first sexual affair; it was with John Ellingham Brooks, an Englishman ten years his senior. 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. [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'". . Sitter associated with 115 portraits. Died: December 16, 1965, in Nice, France. William Somerset Maugham Theatre I THE door opened and Michael Gosselyn looked up. William Somerset Maugham was an English author and playwright. They are motivated by their passions or emotions and by their attempts to control their destinies, not by an ideology or set of ideals. [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. W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage) " If a man hasn't what's necessary to make a woman love him, it's his fault, not hers. He shared . [89] The majority of his original plays were comedies, but of his serious dramas East of Suez (1922), The Letter (1927) and The Sacred Flame (1929) ran for more than 200 performances. [110] He came from Bermondsey, a poor district of London. [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. First published in 1989, Mr Calder's attempt to encompass Maugham's life and work in one volume fits nicely between Ted Morgan's Maugham: A Biography (1980) and Jeffrey Meyers' Somerset Maugham: A Life (2004); as far as I know the only other detailed biography is the very recently (2009) published The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina . [47] In 1913 he proposed to the actress Sue Jones, daughter of the playwright Henry Arthur Jones;[48] she declined his offer. 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 alienation started in childhood. William Somerset Maugham CH was an English playwright, novelist, and short story writer. Her concentration on her work briefly lessened the domestic tensions at the couple's house when Maugham was in residence. 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". Hastings comments that for the young Maugham the hardest thing to accept in abandoning religious faith was "the knowledge that with no expectation of an afterlife he would never see his mother again". W. Somerset Maugham. [71], By that time Maugham was ill with tuberculosis. Morgan describes him: Maugham's biographers have differed considerably about Searle's character and his influence for better or worse on his employer. [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. . The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love. 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. Sisllys 1 Henkilhistoria 2 Kirjallinen tuotanto 2.1 Suomennetut teokset She had the re-mains of good looks, so that you said to yourself that when young . [178], Radio and television adaptations have, in general, been more faithful to Maugham's original stories. Find The Judgment Seat by W. Somerset Maugham - 1934. The possibility became a certainty when in November 1944, after a six-month illness initially diagnosed as pleurisy, Haxton died of tuberculosis. 3 synonyms for Somerset Maugham: Maugham, W. Somerset Maugham, William Somerset Maugham. His style is without a trace of imaginative beauty. [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. 27, 59, 143 and 295, Mander and Mitchenson, p. 15; and Richards, pp. "[33], Before the publication of his next novel, The Making of a Saint (1898), Maugham travelled to Spain. I cannot tell you how I loathe the theatre. Among his colleagues was Frederick Gerald Haxton, a young San Franciscan, who became his lover and companion for the next thirty years, but the affair between Maugham and Syrie Wellcome continued.[51]. [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. His fellow author Cyril Connolly wrote, "there will remain a story-teller's world from Singapore to the Marquesas that is exclusively and forever Maugham". [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). [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]. Many of his works were highly praised: the novels Of Human Bondage , Cakes and Ale , The Razor's Edge , and The Moon and Sixpence ; short stories such as "Rain" and "The Outstation"; and his plays Lady . He was the son of a British diplomat. [139] Trewin quoted with approval Maugham's observation, "Words have weight, sound, and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to". [22] A family friend found Maugham a position in an accountant's office in London, which he endured for a month before resigning. They lived together in the French Riviera, where Maugham entertained lavishly. 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. The new vicar dismisses the verger for being illiterate. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. 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. "Mr. Maugham Himself". [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. [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. It was an amusing book to write. 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. Somerset Maugham ? [5] Maugham's father, Robert Ormond Maugham (18231884), was a prosperous solicitor, based in Paris;[6] his wife, Edith Mary, ne Snell, lived most of her life in France, where all the couple's children were born. [181] Calder cites BBC Television's series of twenty-six stories shown in 1969 and 1970, adapted by dramatists including Roy Clarke, Simon Gray, Hugh Leonard, Simon Raven and Hugh Whitemore,[182] "presented with scrupulous fidelity to [their] tone, attitude, and thematic intention". [12], Maugham's mother died of tuberculosis in January 1882, a few days after his eighth birthday. The story is penned by one of my favorite short story writers, William Somerset Maugham. They visited the Far East together in 191920, keeping Maugham away from home for six months. Although primarily homosexual, he attempted to conform to some extent with the norms of his day. [80] They then visited San Francisco and sailed to Honolulu and Australia before the final leg of their voyage, to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula, where they remained for six months. [1] Peaches were not in season then. The length of his literary career alone makes him a special case. 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 . First, Maugham died two years before Britain's decriminalization in 1967 of same-gender sex behavior. Somerset Maugham . [112] Raphael calls him "a man of more reliable stamp" than Haxton;[73] Meyers describes him as "sober, efficient, honest and gentle". [5], In his work as a medical student Maugham met the poorest working-class people: "I was in contact with what I most wanted, life in the raw". [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". [118] During a visit in 1954 he was invested as a Companion of Honour (CH) by the Queen at a private audience in Buckingham Palace. Maugham's job was to counter German propaganda, and to encourage the moderate republican Russian government under Alexander Kerensky to continue fighting. Part one of two of four stories from Somerset's Quartet film. It is very natural". The Razor's Edge by W Somerset Maugham (Bill Murray Cover) (Paperback, Fiction) 1984. Childhood and education. [49] In 1914 he began an affair with Syrie Wellcome, whom he had known since 1910. Explain how this statement is relevant to "Mr. Know-All". [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. [94] Maugham later wrote, "I grew conscious that I was no longer in touch with the public that patronises the theatre. 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". Corrections? 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. [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". Maugham was born in the English embassy in Paris; the youngest son, he was nicknamed "Willie" by his beautiful mother, Edith . The best years of my life those we spent wandering about the world are inextricably connected with him. Although he was an important influence on many well-known writers, "Maugham's critical stock has remained low". She has often played with fellow Fortnite gamer, Clix. These often convey the emotional toll that isolation exacts from the characters. He successfully sued for divorce in 1916, citing Maugham as co-respondent. In the post-war era, Maugham settled into a pattern of life that changed little from year to year: In 1959 the foreign travel included a final trip to the far East. More like this. [97] During a visit to India in 1938 he found his interest prompted less by the British expatriates than by Indian philosophers and ascetics: "As soon as the Maharajas realized that I didn't want to go on tiger hunts but that I was interested in seeing poets and philosophers they were very helpful. [20] A modest legacy from his father enabled him to go to Heidelberg University to study. [113], Before returning to the south of France after the war, Maugham travelled to England and lived in London until the end of 1946. Topics. [145], A few of Maugham's plays have been revived occasionally. Maugham usually published his works under the name of W. Somerset Maugham. In May 1917 they married at a ceremony in New Jersey. "[98] He visited the Hindu sage Ramana Maharishi at his ashram, and later used him as the model for the spiritual guru of his 1944 novel The Razor's Edge. [73] Most were first published in weekly or monthly magazines and later collected in book form. 191, 205 and 210, Mander and Mitchenson, pp. [146] In London, the National Theatre has presented two Maugham plays since its inception in 1963: Home and Beauty in 1968 and For Services Rendered in 1979. Item Weight: 717g. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 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. Both Maugham's parents died before he was 10, and the orphaned boy was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle who was emotionally cold. 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