W(illiam) Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 in Paris. He was educated at Heidelberg University, Germany. He received a medical degree from St. Thomas' Hospital, London, but never practiced medicine. Maugham wrote novels, short stories and plays. His novels are characterized by a great narrative facility, simplicity of style, and a disillusioned and ironic point of view. Among his novels are Liza of Lambeth (1897); Mrs. Craddock (1902); Of Human Bondage (1915), generally acknowledged to be his masterpiece and considered to be one of the best realistic English novels of the 20th century; The Moon and the Sixpence (1919), a tragic story of the conflict between the artist and conventional society, based on incidents in the life of French painter Paul Gaugin; The Painted Veil (1925); Cakes and Ale (1930); Christmas Holiday (1939); The Hour Before Dawn (1942); The Razor's Edge (1944); and Catalina (1948). Among the collections of his short stories, many of are set in the Orient or the South Seas, are The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), which included the notable story Miss Thompson, later dramatised as Rain; Ashenden, or The British Agent (1928); First Person Singular (1931); Ah King (1933); and Quartet (1949). His plays include the satiric comedies The Circle (921) and Our Betters (1923); the melodrama East of the Suez (1922), The Constant Wife (1927), The Breadwinner (1930), and Sheppy (1933). He also wrote the autobiography The Summing Up (1938); Strictly Personal (1941), an account of his experiences in World War II; Introduction to Modern English and American Literature (1943); and the collections of essays Vagrant Mood (1953) and Points of View (1959). He edited the series Ten Best Novels of the World (1948-49). He died in 1965. [Got this out of the encyclopedia btw.]
Last updated: 18 May 2008
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