MAUGHAM, W. Somerset
British writer of novels, short stories and plays (1874-1965)
A tireless traveller (especially in the Far East), Maugham wrote hundreds of short stories based on anecdotes he heard or scenes he observed en route. Many of them were later filmed: Rain', for example (about a missionary on a cruise-liner in Samoa struggling to reform a prostitute, and losing his own soul in the process), was made half a dozen times. Maugham's novels used true experience in a similar way, shaping it and drawing out its meaning but keeping close to real events. Liza of Lambeth (1897) is about a Londonslum girl tormented by her neighbours for conceiving a bastard child. Of Human Bondage (1915) is the story of an orphan, bullied at school because he has a club foot, who struggles to find happiness as an adult, is ravaged by love for a worthless woman, and settles at last to become a country doctor. The stockbroker hero of The Moon and Sixpence (1919) gives up career, wife and family to become a painter in the South Seas, as Gauguin did. Cakes and Ale (1930) is an acid satire about the 1930s London literary world; Maugham avoided libel suits only by claiming that every writer it pilloried was just another aspect of himself.
Maugham's other novels include The Trembling of a Leaf, The Casuarina Tree, The Razor's Edge and Catalina. His Complete Short Stories and Collected Plays (from 1907--32 he wrote two dozen successful plays, mainly comedies) were published in the 1950s. A Writer's Notebook and The Summing Up give fascinating insights into the balance between his life and work.
READ ON
To Liza of Lambeth : Emile Zola, The Boozer (L'Assommoir) Arthur Morrison, A Child of the Jago
To Of Human Bondage : C.P. Snow, Strangers and Brothers Jerome Weidman, Fourth Street East
To The Moon and Sixpence : Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth
To Cakes and Ale : Rose Macaulay, Crewe Train J.B. Priestley, The Image Men
To the short stories : Guy de Maupassant, Boule de Suif Rudyard Kipling, Wee Willie Winkie R.L. Stevenson, Island Nights' Entertainment Paul Theroux, World's End
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