William Somerset Maugham
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2
Awards
W. Somerset Maugham was a British novelist, playwright, and short-story writer who was the highest-paid author in the world in the 1930s. He graduated from St. Thomas’s Medical School in 1897 but abandoned medicine after his early literary success. During World War I he served as a secret agent, an experience that inspired his 1928 spy novel Ashenden. Critics compare his plot skill to Guy de Maupassant.
Names, aliases, and relatives of W. Somerset Maugham — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
W. Somerset Maugham by the numbers — life, work, and family.
W. Somerset Maugham — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
On January 25, 1874, W. Somerset Maugham was born at the British Embassy in Paris, where his father Robert Ormond Maugham worked as a solicitor. His mother Edith Mary Snell died of tuberculosis when he was eight; three years later, his father died of cancer. Orphaned, he went to live with his uncle, the Vicar of Whitstable, Kent. He attended King’s College London, Heidelberg University, and St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, qualifying as a doctor in 1897.
Maugham abandoned medicine after graduating from St Thomas’s in 1897, turning to writing after his early novels and plays succeeded. During WWI, he served as a secret agent, an experience he used in the 1928 novel Ashenden; or The British Agent. By the 1930s, he was the highest-paid author globally. His writing style was clear and economical with a cynical undertone, and critics compared his plot construction to Guy de Maupassant. His stories often unfold in international settings. He also appeared as himself in film adaptations like Trio 1950 and Quartet 1948.
In 1917, Maugham married Maud Gwendolen Syrie Barnardo; they divorced in 1928. He had one daughter, Mary Elizabeth Maugham. From 1928 onward, he settled in Cap Ferrat in France, from where he traveled the world. His relationship with his American secretary Gerald Haxton was subject to speculation. Despite his literary success, he was never knighted.
Maugham’s spy novel Ashenden 1928 influenced later espionage writers like Graham Greene and John le Carre. He was made a Companion of Honour in the 1954 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Director Alfred Hitchcock admired his work. He is most remembered for his mastery of plot and his cynical, resigned tone in stories that defined a genre of realistic fiction.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by W. Somerset Maugham — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
W. Somerset Maugham's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from W. Somerset Maugham — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
In Hollywood, the Women Are All Peaches. It Makes One Long for an Apple Occasionally.
It Is Dangerous to Let the Public Behind the Scenes. They Are Easily Disillusioned and Then They Are Angry with You, for It Was the Illusion They Loved.
At a Dinner Party One Should Eat Wisely but Not Too Well, and Talk Well but Not Too Wisely.
A Woman Will Always Sacrifice Herself If You Give Her the Opportunity. It Is Her Favorite Form of Self Indulgence.
It Is a Funny Thing About Life. If You Refuse to Accept Anything but the Best, You Very Often Get It.
Life Is Too Short to Do Anything for Oneself That One Can Pay Others to Do for One.
Sentimentality Is the Only Sentiment That Rubs You the Wrong Way.
If 50 Million People Say a Foolish Thing, It’s Still a Foolish Thing.
Looking Back Upon My Work in My Old Age, I Am Disposed to Regard It Very Modestly and to Admit Frankly Some of Its Shortcomings.
Art, If It Is to Be Reckoned as One of the Great Values of Life, Must Teach Men Humility, Tolerance, Wisdom and Magnanimity. the Value of Art Is Not Beauty, but Right Action.
To Have Learnt to Play a Good Game of Bridge Is the Safest Insurance Against the Tedium of Old Age.
Every Writer Hits Now and Then Upon a Thought That Seems to Him so Happy, a Repartee That Amuses Him so Much, That to Cut It Is Worse Than Having a Tooth Out. It Is Then That It Is Well to Have Engraved on His Heart the Maxim, If You Can Cut, Cut.
Being Famous Is Like Having a String of Pearls Given You. It’s Nice, but After a While, If You Think of It at All, It’s Only to Wonder If They’re Real or Cultured.
When I Was Young the Conception of a Gentlemen Had Value. Now, Not Only What It Stood for but the Word Itself Has Become Vaguely Objectionable. Outside Lavatories You Will Often See ‘Ladies’ on the Door of One, but ‘Men’ on the Door of Another.
No One Can Be Original by Trying.
I Do Not Think I Am Any Better or Any Worse Than Most People, but I Know That If I Set Down Every Action in My Mind and Every Thought That Has Crossed My Mind, the World Would Consider Me a Monster of Depravity.
She Plunged into a Sea of Platitudes And, with the Powerful Breast Stroke of a Channel Swimmer, Made Her Confident Way Towards the White Cliffs of the Obvious.
In a Story, as in a Play, You Must Make up Your Mind What Your Point Is and Stick to It Like Grim Death.
In France, a Man Who Has Ruined Himself for Women Is Generally Regarded with Sympathy and Admiration. There Is a Feeling That It Was Worthwhile, and the Man Who Has Done It Feels Even a Certain Pride in the Fact. in England, He Will Be Thought and Will Think Himself a Damned Fool.
The Humorist Has a Good Eye for the Humbug: He Does Not Always Recognize the Saint.
Few Misfortunes Can Befall a Boy Which Bring Worse Consequence Than to Have a Really Affectionate Mother.
Little-known facts about W. Somerset Maugham — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Maugham was born in the same year as Winston Churchill, 1874, and died in the same year as Churchill, 1965.
Alfred Hitchcock, in his interview with François Truffaut, claimed Maugham was one of the few fiction writers he enjoyed reading for leisure.
He received the Companion of Honour CH in the 1954 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his services to literature.
He was born at the British Embassy in Paris, where his father Robert was a solicitor. His mother Edith died of tuberculosis when he was eight, and his father died of cancer three years later. He was then sent to live with his uncle, the Vicar of Whitstable, Kent.
He was the uncle of writer Robin Maugham.
Maugham is mentioned in the song One Night in Bangkok from the musical Chess, a hit song for Murray Head in 1984.
He is the great-grandfather of Derek Paravicini.
A biography/bibliography of Maugham appears in Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, volume 127, pages 280-288 Gale, 2004.
A biography appears in Current Biography Yearbook 1963, pages 263-265 H.W. Wilson Company, 1964.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about W. Somerset Maugham.
Celebrities similar to W. Somerset Maugham — same craft, ranked by reach.
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