W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham was a prolific and internationally celebrated British author of the early 20th century. Renowned for his lucid, economical prose and penetrating insight into human nature, he achieved remarkable success across multiple genres, including novels, short stories, and plays. His works, often drawing from his extensive travels and experiences in the British Empire, explore themes of passion, disillusionment, and the search for meaning. Maugham's critical reputation has fluctuated, but his influence and popularity with readers have remained enduring.

Life and career

William Somerset Maugham was born in the British Embassy in Paris, where his father worked for the Foreign Office. Orphaned by the age of ten, he was sent to live with a stern uncle in Whitstable, Kent, an experience that informed the early chapters of his autobiographical novel, Of Human Bondage. He studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital in London, qualifying as a physician in 1897, though he never practiced. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), drew on his experiences in the London slums. After initial literary struggles, he found great success as a playwright in the West End during the Edwardian era. During the First World War, he served with the British Red Cross and later for the Secret Intelligence Service in Switzerland and Russia. Extensive travels throughout Southeast Asia and the South Pacific in the 1920s and 1930s provided rich material for his later fiction. He eventually settled at the Villa Mauresque on the French Riviera, becoming a famous literary host.

Literary style and themes

Maugham championed a clear, unadorned, and conversational prose style, influenced by writers like Jonathan Swift and Gustave Flaubert. He positioned himself as a storyteller first, often employing a detached, sometimes cynical narrative voice. Central themes in his work include the tension between artistic freedom and social convention, the destructive power of obsessive love, and the hypocrisy of societal morals. His fiction frequently examines the lives of English expatriates and colonial administrators, as seen in stories like those collected in The Casuarina Tree. A profound skepticism toward religion and a fascination with Eastern philosophy, particularly Vedanta, became prominent in his later novels. He often used real people and events as inspiration, blurring the lines between fiction and biography.

Major works

His seminal autobiographical novel, Of Human Bondage (1915), is considered his masterpiece, tracing the painful coming-of-age of Philip Carey. The Moon and Sixpence (1919) is a fictionalized account of the life of Paul Gauguin, exploring the ruthless pursuit of artistic genius. Cakes and Ale (1930), a satire of literary pretension, was widely believed to caricature novelists Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole. His final major novel, The Razor's Edge (1944), follows a World War I veteran's spiritual quest in India and Europe. Maugham was also a master of the short story, with celebrated collections including The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), which contains "Rain," and Ashenden (1928), pioneering tales of espionage based on his own war service.

Critical reception and legacy

During his lifetime, Maugham enjoyed immense commercial success and was one of the world's highest-paid writers in the 1930s. However, highbrow critics, including Edmund Wilson and the Bloomsbury Group, often dismissed his work as superficial or merely competent. His straightforward style and popular appeal were at odds with the modernist experiments of contemporaries like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Posthumously, academic reassessment has acknowledged his exceptional skill as a craftsman and social observer. His influence is evident in the works of later writers such as George Orwell and V.S. Naipaul. Many of his novels and stories have been adapted into successful films by studios like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and actors including Bette Davis and Tyrone Power.

Personal life and views

Maugham's personal life was complex and often fraught. He married Syrie Wellcome in 1917, but the marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1929. His primary relationship for over thirty years was with his secretary, Gerald Haxton, who acted as his companion and facilitator during his travels. In later life, he lived with his nephew, Robin, and another companion, Alan Searle. A lifelong stutterer, he cultivated a persona of aloof observation. Politically, he held elitist and pessimistic views, expressed in works like his memoir, The Summing Up (1938). His bequest established the Somerset Maugham Award, which funds young British writers to travel abroad.

Category:British novelists Category:English dramatists and playwrights Category:English short story writers