W. Somerset Maugham was born in Paris as the sixth and youngest son of the solicitor to the British embassy. He learned French as his native tongue. At the age of 10 Maugham was orphaned and sent to England to live with his uncle, the vicar of Whitstable. Educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and Heidelberg University, Maugham then studied six years medicine in London. He qualified in 1897 as doctor from St. Thomas’ medical school but abandoned medicine after the success of his first novels and plays.
Maugham lived in Paris for ten years as a struggling young author. In 1897 appeared his first novel, Liza Of Lambeth, which drew on his experiences of attending women in childbirth. His first play, A Man Of Honour, was produced in 1903. Four of his plays ran simultaneously in London in 1904. Maugham’s breakthrough novel was the semi-autobiographical Of Human Bondage (1915), which is usually considered his outstanding achievement.
Disguising as a reporter, Maugham worked for British Intelligence in Russia during the Russian Revolution in 1917, but his stuttering and poor health hindered his career in this field. He then set off with a friend on a series of travels to eastern Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Mexico. His most famous story, which became the play Rain and was made into several movies, was inspired by a missionary and prostitute among his fellow passengers on a trip to Pago Pago. In the 1928 he settled in Cape Ferrat in France. His plays, among them The Circle (1921), a satire of social life, Our Betters (1923), about Americans in Europe, and The Constant Wife (1927), about a wife who takes revenge on her unfaithful husband, were performed in Europe and in the United States. Maugham’s famous novel The Moon And The Sixpence (1919) was the story of Charles Strickland, an artist, whose rejection of Western civilization led to his departure for Tahiti. There he is blinded by leprosy but continues painting. Trembling Of A Leaf (1921) included the story ‘Rain,’ made into a play by John Colton and Clemence Randolph in 1922. Razors Edge (1944), about a spiritual quest, was made into film two times.
As an agent and writer Maugham was a link in a long tradition from Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and Daniel Defoe to the modern day writers Graham Greene, John Le Carre, John Dickson Carr, Alec Waugh and Ted Allbeury. It is said that the modern spy story began with Maugham’s Ashenden; Or The British Agent (1928). It was partly based on the author’s own experiences in the secret service. Alfred Hitchcock used in his film Secret Agent (1936) specifically the stories ‘The Traitor’ and ‘The Hairless Mexican’.
Maugham believed that there is a true harmony in the contradictions of mankind and that the the normal is in reality the abnormal. “The ordinary is the writer’s richest field”, he stated in The Summing Up (1938). In his satirical short story ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ he juxtaposed two brothers, the unscrupulous and carefree Tom and the hardworking, respectable George, who expects that Tom would end in the gutter. Although he became world famous he was never knighted and his relationship with Gerald Haxton, his secretary, have been subject to speculations.
A number of Maugham’s short stories have been filmed. Quartet (1948) consisted of four stories introduced by the author—‘The Facts of Life’, ‘The Alien Corn’, ‘The Kite’, and ‘The Colonel’s Lady.’
After the 1930s Maugham’s reputation abroad was greater than in England. Interest in him revived again in his 80th birthday, which he celebrated by the special republication of Cakes And Ale (1930), a novel satirizing London literary circles and ‘Grand Old Men’. Maugham collected his literary experiences in The Summing Up, which has been used as a guidebook for creative writing. Maugham died in Nice on December 16, 1965.
