Somerset Maugham: the best works. William Somerset Maugham Somerset Maugham's Personal Life

28.06.2019

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William Somerset Maugham (January 25, 1874, Paris - December 16, 1965, Nice) - English writer, one of the most successful prose writers of the 1930s, an agent of British intelligence.

Somerset Maugham was born into the family of a lawyer at the British Embassy in France. The parents specially prepared for the birth on the territory of the embassy so that the child had legal grounds to say that he was born in the UK: the adoption of a law was expected according to which all children born in French territory would automatically become French citizens and, thus, upon reaching the age of majority, were to be sent to front in case of war.

As a child, Maugham spoke only French, he mastered English only after he was orphaned at the age of 11 (his mother died of consumption in February 1882, his father died of stomach cancer in June 1884), and was sent to relatives in the English city of Whitstable in Kent, six miles from Canterbury. Upon arrival in England, Maugham began to stutter - this has survived for life.

Since William was raised in the family of Henry Maugham, the vicar at Whitstable, he began his studies at the Royal School in Canterbury. Then he studied literature and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg - in Heidelberg, Maugham wrote his first work - a biography of the German composer Meerber (when it was rejected by the publisher, Maugham burned the manuscript).

Then he entered the medical school (1892) at the hospital of St. Thomas in London - this experience is reflected in the first novel by Maugham "Lisa of Lambeth" (1897). The first success in the field of literature brought Maugham the play "Lady Frederick" (1907).

During World War I, he collaborated with MI5, and was sent to Russia as an agent of British intelligence. The work of the intelligence officer was reflected in the collection of short stories "Ashenden, or British Agent" (1928, Russian translation 1992).

In May 1917, in the United States, Maugham married Siri Welcom. Divorced in 1929.

After the war, Maugham continued his successful career as a playwright, writing the plays "Circle" (1921), "Sheppie" (1933). Maugham's novels, The Burden of Human Passions (1915; Russian translation, 1959), an almost autobiographical novel, The Moon and a Penny (1919; Russian translation, 1927, 1960), Pies and Beer (1930) also enjoyed success. , "Razor's Edge" (1944).

In July 1919, in pursuit of new impressions, Maugham went to China, and later to Malaysia, which gave him material for two collections of stories.

Maugham died on December 15, 1965 in a hospital in Nice from pneumonia. But since, according to French law, patients who died in hospital were supposed to undergo an autopsy, he was taken home and only on December 16 was reported that Somerset Maugham had died at home, at the Villa Moresque, in the French town of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat near Nice. ...

On December 22, his ashes were buried under the wall of the Maugham Library at the Royal School in Canterbury.

Books (7)

Razor edge

"Razor's Edge" is not just a novel, but - a true "school of morals" of the English bohemia of the beginning of the 20th century, a book sarcastic to the point of mercilessness, but at the same time - full of subtle psychologism.

Somerset Maugham does not make diagnoses and does not pass judgments - he paints his own "chronicle of lost time", which the reader will have to learn!

Five best novels (collection)

Somerset Maugham's best novels - in one volume.

Very different, but invariably bright and witty, full of deep psychologism and impeccable knowledge of human nature.

In them, the writer raises eternal themes: love and betrayal, art and life, freedom and dependence, relations between men and women, creators and the crowd ...

However, Maugham does not make diagnoses and does not pass sentences - he paints his own "chronicle of lost time", which the reader will have to learn.

Collected works in five volumes. Volume 1

Volume one. The burden of human passions.

The first volume of the Collected Works of the famous English writer William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) includes the novel "Burden of Human Passions", written in 1915, and autobiographical essays of recent years.

Collected works in five volumes. Volume 5

Volume five. Plays. On a Chinese screen. Summing up. Essay.

In the fifth volume of the Collected Works of W.C. Maugham included his plays: "The Circle", "For Merit", travel essays "On a Chinese Screen", the writer's creative confession "Summing Up", as well as essays from various collections.

Reader Comments

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 Most people think little. They accept their presence in the world without reasoning; blind slaves of the power that moves them, they rush in all directions, trying to satisfy their natural impulses, and when the power dries up, they go out like a candle flame.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 “Good” and “bad” are empty words, and the rules of behavior are a convention invented by people for selfish purposes.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 Much has been written about the fact that no two people are alike, that each person is uniquely unique. This is partly true, but the meaning is only theoretical; in practice, all people are very similar to each other.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 Listening to some judge in the Old Bailey court sully reading morality, I wondered if he had forgotten his human essence as thoroughly as it appears from his words? And I had a desire to have a pack of toilet paper next to his grace next to a bouquet of flowers. It would remind him that he is the same person as everyone else.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 An artist should be indifferent to both praise and abuse, since his work is interesting to him only in relation to himself, and how the public will react to him - in this he may be interested materially, but not spiritually.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 One thing is important for me in a work of art: how I feel about it.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 It makes sense to read only if it gives pleasure.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 09/19/2013 I know that if I told about all the actions that I did in my life, and all the thoughts that were born in my brain, I would be considered a monster.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 We judge others based not on who we are, but on the basis of some idea of ourselves that we have created, excluding from it everything that bites our pride or would drop us in the eyes of the world.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 19.09.2013 The prestige that acquaintance with a famous person creates for you in the eyes of your friends proves only that you yourself are worth a little.

So Spoke Somerset Maugham/ 09/19/2013 It is very easy to convince yourself that a phrase that you do not fully understand is in fact extremely significant. And from here - one step to the habit of fixing your impressions on paper in all their primordial nebula. There will always be fools who will find a hidden meaning in them.

Somerset Maugham was a well-known English novelist of the 1930s and an agent of British intelligence. Born and died in France. He lived a vibrant long life and died at 91. Years of life - 1874-1965. Somerset Maugham's father was a lawyer at the British Embassy of France, thanks to which the writer automatically received French citizenship when he was born in Paris.

At the age of 8, Somerset lost his mother, and at 10 he lost his father, after which he was sent to be raised with relatives in the city of Whitstable. Since the grandfather of Somerset Maugham, as well as his father, was engaged in jurisprudence, and was the most famous lawyer at that time, his parents predicted a career in the same field for the writer. But their expectations were not met.

Somerset, after graduating from high school in Canterbury, entered the University of Heidelberg, where he studied such sciences as philosophy and literature. After the writer studied at the medical school at the hospital of St. Thomas in London. Somerset wrote his first manuscript while still studying at the University of Heidelberg. It was a biography of the composer Meyerbeer, but since it was not published, it was burned by the author.

As a homosexual, in May 1917, Maugham married the decorator Siri Welcom, with whom they had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Maugham. The marriage was not successful, in 1929 the couple divorced. In his old age, Somerset admitted: "My biggest mistake was that I imagined myself three-quarters normal and only a quarter homosexual, when in reality it was the other way around."

In 1987, Somerset Maugham wrote the first novel, Lisa of Lambeth. but success came to him only in 1907 after the publication of the play "Lady Frederick". As a spy, Somerset Maugham was an agent of British intelligence and carried out espionage in Russia. But he did not fulfill his mission. The writer tells about this life experience in his work "Ashenden" ("British Agent", written in 1928. Somerset Maugham visited Malaysia, China, USA. New countries inspired him to create various creative works. How the playwright Somerset Maugham wrote many plays ...

Some of his best works are the play "The Circle", written in 1921; "Shepi" - 1933; the novel "Pies and Beer" -1930; "Theater" - 1937 and many other works. Somerset Maugham's biography was presented in this text. Of course, all the life situations of this brightest figure were not fully covered, but the main stages are reflected, which makes it possible to compose a definite picture of this person.

In 1947, the writer approved the Somerset Maugham Award, which was awarded to the best English writers under the age of thirty-five.

Maugham gave up travel when he felt they had nothing more to give him. “I had nowhere to change further. The arrogance of culture flew away from me. I accepted the world as it is. I learned to be tolerant. I wanted freedom for myself and was ready to give it to others. " After 1948, Maugham left drama and fiction, writing essays, mainly on literary topics.

The last lifetime publication of Maugham's work, the autobiographical notes "A Look into the Past," was published in the fall of 1962 on the pages of the London "Sunday Express".

Somerset Maugham died on December 15, 1965 at the age of 92 in the French town of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, near Nice, from pneumonia. According to French law, patients who died in hospital were supposed to undergo an autopsy, but the writer was taken home, and on December 16 it was officially announced that he had died at home, in his villa, which became his last refuge. The writer does not have a grave as such, since his ashes were scattered under the wall of the Maugham Library, at the Royal School in Canterbury.

Interesting facts:
- Maugham always put his desk against a blank wall so that nothing would distract from work. He worked for three to four hours in the morning, fulfilling his own assigned norm of 1000-1500 words.
- Dying, he said: “Dying is a boring and joyless business. My advice to you is never to do this. "
“Before writing a new novel, I always re-read Candida, so that later I unconsciously equal myself in this standard of clarity, grace and wit.”
- Maugham about the book "Burden of Human Passions": "My book is not an autobiography, but an autobiographical novel, where facts are tightly mixed with fiction; I experienced the feelings described in it myself, but not all the episodes happened the way they were told, and they were taken partly not from my life, but from the lives of people I know well. "
- "I would not go to see my plays at all, neither on the evening of the premiere, nor on any other evening, if I did not consider it necessary to check their effect on the public in order to learn from this how to write them."

Writer.

“To achieve success, as my experience tells me, there is only one way - by telling the truth, as you understand it, about what you know for certain ... Imagination will help the writer to assemble an important or beautiful pattern from scattered facts. It will help to see the whole behind the particular ... However, if a writer does not correctly see the essence of things, then imagination will only aggravate his mistakes, and correctly he can only see what he knows from personal experience. " S. Moeham

Fate decreed that Somerset Maugham lived for ninety years and at the end of his life the writer came to the conclusion that he always lived in the future. Maugham's creative longevity is impressive: starting his journey at the time of the growing prominence of the late Victorians - Hardy, Kipling and Wilde, he finished it when new stars - Golding, Murdoch, Fowles and Spark - were lit on the literary horizon. And at every turn of the rapidly changing historical time, Maugham remained a modern writer.

In his works, Maugham comprehended the problems of a universal and general philosophical plan, he was surprisingly sensitive to the tragic beginning characteristic of the events of the 20th century, as well as to the hidden drama of characters and human relations. At the same time, he was often reproached for dispassion and cynicism, to which Maugham himself, following the idol of his youth, Maupassant, replied: “I, no doubt, are considered one of the most indifferent people in the world. I'm a skeptic, it's not the same thing, a skeptic, because I have good eyes. My eyes tell my heart: hide, old, you're funny. And the heart is hiding. "

William Somerset Maugham was born on January 25, 1874, the son of a hereditary lawyer who served at the British Embassy in Paris. Maugham's childhood, spent in France, proceeded in an atmosphere of benevolence, affectionate care and tender love of his mother, and childhood impressions determined a lot in his later life.

As an Englishman, Maugham spoke mostly French until he was ten. He also graduated from elementary school in France, and his classmates later laughed at his English for a long time when he returned to England. “I was ashamed of the English,” Maugham admitted. He was eight years old when his mother died, and at ten, Maugham lost his father. This happened when a house was completed on the outskirts of Paris, in which his family was supposed to live. But the family was no longer - Somerset's older brothers studied at Cambridge, and were preparing to become lawyers, and Willie was sent to England in the care of the priest uncle Henry Maugham. In his pastor's home, Maugham spent his school years, who grew up lonely and withdrawn, at school he felt like an outsider, and was very different from the boys who grew up in England, who laughed at Maugham's stuttering and his manner of speaking English. He was unable to overcome his painful shyness. “I will never forget the suffering of these years,” said Maugham, who avoided memories of his childhood. He always retained a constant vigilance, a fear of being humiliated, and developed the habit of observing everything from a certain distance.

Books and an addiction to reading helped Maugham to hide from the environment. Willie lived in a world of books, among which his favorites were the tales of A Thousand and One Nights, Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Scott's Waverly and Captain Marriet's adventure novels. Maugham was good at drawing, loved music and could apply for a place at Cambridge, but he was not deeply interested in this. He has fond memories of his teacher Thomas Field, whom Maugham later described under the name of Tom Perkins in the novel "The Burden of Human Passions." But the joy of interacting with Field could not outweigh what Maugham had to learn in the classrooms and dormitories of the boys' boarding school.

The health condition of his nephew, who grew up a sickly child, forced the guardian to send Maugham first to the south of France, and then to Germany, to Heidelberg. This trip determined a lot in the life and views of the young man. The University of Heidelberg at that time was a hotbed of culture and free thought. Cuno Fischer inflamed minds with lectures about Descartes, Spinoza, Schopenhauer; Wagner's music was amazing, his theory of musical drama opened up unknown distances, Ibsen's plays, translated into German and staged on stage, excited, broke the established ideas. At the university, Maugham felt his calling, but in a respectable family the position of a professional writer was considered dubious, his three older brothers were already lawyers, and Maugham decided to become a doctor. In the fall of 1892, he returned to England, and entered medical school at St. Thomas's Hospital in Lambeth, the poorest area of London. Maugham later recalled: “During the years that I was involved in medicine, I systematically studied English, French, Italian and Latin literature. I have read many books on history, some on philosophy and, of course, on natural science and medicine. "

The medical practice that began in his third year suddenly interested him. And three years of hard work in the hospital wards of one of the poorest districts of London helped Maugham to comprehend human nature much deeper than the books he had read earlier. And Somerset concluded: "I know of no better school for a writer than the work of a doctor." “During these three years,” Maugham wrote in his autobiographical book, Summing Up, “I have witnessed all the emotions that a person is capable of. It kindled my instinct as a playwright, excited the writer in me ... I saw people die. I saw how they endured the pain. Saw what hope, fear, relief looks like; saw the black shadows that despair puts on faces; saw courage and perseverance. "

Medicine classes affected the peculiarities of Maugham's creative manner. Like other medical writers Sinclair Lewis and John O "Hara, his prose was free of exaggeration. The harsh regime - from nine to six in the hospital - left Maugham to study literature only in the evenings that Somerset spent reading books, and still learned to write. He translated Ibsen's "Ghosts", striving to learn the technique of the playwright, wrote plays and short stories. The manuscripts of two stories Maugham sent to the publisher Fisher Unwin, and one of them received a favorable review from E. Garnett, a well-known authority in literary circles. Garnett advised the unknown the author continued to write, and the publisher replied: we need not stories, but a novel. After reading Unwin's answer, Maugham immediately set about creating “Lisa of Lambeth.” In September 1897, this novel was published.

“When I started working on Lisa of Lambeth, I tried to write it as I thought Maupassant should have done it,” Maugham later admitted. The book was born not under the influence of literary images, but real impressions of the author. Maugham tried to reproduce with maximum accuracy the life and customs of Lambeth, into the ominous nooks of which not every policeman dared to look, and where the black suitcase of an obstetrician served as a pass and a security certificate for Maugham.

The appearance of Maugham's novel was preceded by a scandal caused by T. Hardy's novel "Jude the Obscure", published in 1896. The fervor of critics who accused Hardy of naturalism was thoroughly exhausted, and Maugham's debut was relatively calm. Moreover, the tragic story of a girl, told with harsh truthfulness and without a shadow of any sentimentality, was a success with readers. And soon great success awaited the novice writer in the theatrical field.

At first, his one-act plays were rejected, but in 1902 one of them - "Marriages are made in heaven" - was staged in Berlin. In England, it never came to its production, although Maugham published the play in the small magazine "Adventure". Maugham's truly successful career as a playwright began with the comedy Lady Frederick, staged in 1903 and also directed by Court-Tietre in 1907. In the 1908 season, four of Maugham's plays were already staged in London. In "Punch" appeared a cartoon by Bernard Partridge, which depicted Shakespeare, languishing with envy before the posters with the name of the writer. Along with entertaining comedies, Maugham created in the pre-war years sharp critical plays: "Cream of Society", "Smith" and "Promised Land", in which the themes of social inequality, hypocrisy and corruption of representatives of the highest echelons of power were raised. Maugham wrote about his profession as a playwright: "I would never go to see my plays, either on the evening of the premiere, or on any other evening, if I did not consider it necessary to check their effect on the public in order to learn how to write them."

Maugham recalled that reactions to his plays were mixed: “Public newspapers praised the plays for their wit, gaiety, and stage presence, but scolded them for their cynicism; more serious critics were merciless towards them. They called them cheap, vulgar, told me that I sold my soul to Mamon. And the intelligentsia, who previously considered me their modest but respected member, not only turned their backs on me, which would have been bad enough, but threw me into the abyss of hell as a new Lucifer. " On the eve of the First World War, his plays were successfully performed in London theaters and overseas. But the war changed Maugham's life. He was drafted into the army, and first served in the medical battalion, and then joined the British intelligence service. Carrying out her assignments, he spent a year in Switzerland, and then was sent by the Intelligence Service staff on a secret mission to Russia. At first, Maugham perceived this kind of activity, like Kipling's Kim, as participation in the "big game", but later, talking about this stage of his life, he called espionage not only dirty, but also boring work. The purpose of his stay in Petrograd, where he arrived in August 1917 through Vladivostok, was to prevent Russia from withdrawing from the war. The meetings with Kerensky deeply disappointed Maugham. The Russian prime minister impressed him as an insignificant and indecisive person. Of all the Russian politicians with whom he had a chance to talk, Maugham singled out only Savinkov as a large and outstanding person. Having received a secret assignment from Kerensky to Lloyd George, Maugham left for London on October 18, but a week later a revolution began in Russia, and his mission lost its meaning. But Maugham did not regret his fiasco, later teased the unfortunate agent about his fate and was grateful to fate for the “Russian adventure.” Maugham wrote about Russia: “Endless conversations where action was required; fluctuations; apathy leading a direct path to disaster; pompous declarations, insincerity and lethargy that I saw everywhere - all this pushed me away from Russia and the Russians. " But he was glad to visit the country where Anna Karenina and Crime and Punishment were written, and to discover Chekhov. He later said: “When the English intelligentsia was carried away by Russia, I remembered that Cato began to study Greek at the age of eighty, and took up Russian. But by that time my youthful fervor had diminished; I learned to read Chekhov's plays, but I didn't go further than that, and the little that I knew then was long forgotten. "

The time between the two world wars was filled with intense writing and travel for Maugham. He spent two years in a tuberculosis sanatorium, which gave him inexhaustible new material for creativity, and later he appeared in several qualities at once: as a novelist, playwright, short story writer, essayist and essayist. And his comedies and dramas began to compete on stage with the plays of Bernard Shaw himself. Maugham had a real "stage instinct." Writing plays came to him with surprising ease. They were full of winning roles, originally constructed, the dialogues in them were always perfected and witty.

In the post-war period, significant changes took place in Maugham's drama. In the comedy "Circle", written by him in 1921, Maugham was given a sharp criticism of the immorality of high society. The tragedy of the “lost generation” was revealed to him in the play “The Unknown”. Also, the atmosphere of the "stormy thirties", a deep economic crisis, the growing threat of fascism and a new world war determined the social sounding of his latest plays "For Special Merit" and "Sheppie".

Later, Maugham wrote the novels "Burden of Human Passions", "The Moon and a Penny," "Pies and Beer, or Skeleton in the Cupboard." Their film adaptation brought the writer wide fame, and the autobiographical novel "Burden of Human Passions" was recognized by critics and readers as the best achievement of the writer. Written in line with the traditional "novel of upbringing," he was distinguished by an amazing openness and utmost sincerity in revealing the drama of the soul. Theodore Dreiser was fascinated by the novel and called Maugham a “great artist”, and the book he wrote “the creation of a genius”, comparing it to a Beethoven symphony. Maugham wrote about The Burden of Human Passions: “My book is not an autobiography, but an autobiographical novel, where facts are tightly mixed with fiction; I experienced the feelings described in it myself, but not all the episodes happened the way they were told, and they were taken partly not from my life, but from the lives of people I know well. "

Another paradox of Maugham is his personal life. Maugham was bisexual. The service of a special agent brought him to the United States, where the writer met a man, the love for whom he carried throughout his life. This man was Frederick Gerald Haxton, an American born in San Francisco but raised in England, who later became Maugham's personal secretary and lover. The writer Beverly Nicole, one of Maugham's friends, testified: “Maugham was not a 'pure' homosexual. He, of course, had love affairs with women; and there were no signs of feminine behavior or feminine mannerisms. " And Maugham himself wrote: "Let those who like me accept me as I am, and the rest do not accept at all." Maugham had many love affairs with famous women - in particular, with the famous feminist and editor of the Free Woman magazine Violet Hunt, and with Sasha Kropotkina, the daughter of the famous Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin, who lived in exile in London. However, only two women played an important role in Maugham's life. The first was the daughter of the famous playwright Ethelvin Jones, better known as Sue Jones. Maugham loved her very much, called her Rosie, and it was under this name that she entered as one of the characters in his novel "Pies and Beer". When Maugham met her, she recently divorced her husband and was a popular actress. At first he did not want to marry her, and when he proposed to her, he was stunned - she refused him. It turned out that Sue was already pregnant by another man, whom she soon married.

Another woman of the writer was Cyri Barnardo Wellcam, whom Maugham had met in 1911. Her father was known for founding a network of shelters for homeless children, and Sairee herself had a history of unsuccessful family life. For a while, Sairee and Maugham were inseparable, they had a daughter, whom they named Elizabeth, but Sairee's husband found out about her relationship with Maugham and filed for divorce. Sairee attempted suicide but survived, and when Sairee divorced, Maugham married her. But soon Maugham's feelings for his wife changed. In one of his letters, he wrote: “I married you because I thought it was the only thing I can do for you and for Elizabeth, to give you happiness and security. I didn’t marry you because I loved you so much, and you know very well about it. ” Soon Maugham and Sairee began to live separately, and a few years later Sairee filed for divorce, having received it in 1929. Maugham wrote: "I have loved many women, but have never experienced the bliss of mutual love."

In the mid-thirties, Maugham acquired the Villa Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera, which became the home for the rest of the writer's life and one of the great literary and social salons. Winston Churchill and HG Wells visited the writer, and Soviet writers occasionally came. His work continued to be replenished with plays, stories, novels, essays and travel books. By 1940, Somerset Maugham had become one of the most famous and wealthy writers of English fiction. Maugham did not hide the fact that he writes “not for the sake of money, but in order to get rid of the ideas, characters, types that pursue his imagination, but, at the same time, does not mind if creativity provides him, among other things, with the opportunity to write what he wants and be his own master. "

The Second World War found Maugham in France. On the instructions of the Ministry of Information of England, he studied the mood of the French, spent more than a month on the Maginot Line, visited warships in Toulon. He was confident that France would fulfill her duty and would fight to the end. His reporting on this formed the book France at War, published in 1940. Three months after its release, France fell, and Maugham, having learned that the Nazis had entered his name on the black lists, with difficulty reached England on a coal barge, and later left for the United States, where he lived until the end of the war. Maugham spent most of World War II in Hollywood, where he worked on scripts, amended them, and later lived in the South.

Having erred in his forecast of France's ability to fight back against Hitler, Maugham compensated for it in The Very Personal with a poignant analysis of the situation leading to defeat. He wrote that the French government, and the prosperous bourgeoisie and aristocracy behind it, were more afraid of Russian Bolshevism than of German invasion. The tanks were kept not on the Maginot Line, but in the rear in case of a revolt of their own workers, corruption corroded society, and the spirit of decay took possession of the army.

In 1944, Maugham's novel "The Edge of a Razor" was published and his colleague and lover Gerald Haxton died, after which Maugham moved to England, and then in 1946 to his ruined villa in France. The novel "Razor's Edge" was the final for Maugham in all respects. His idea was hatched for a long time, and the plot was summarized in the story "The Fall of Edward Barnard" back in 1921. When asked how much he wrote this book, Maugham replied: "All my life." In fact, the novel was the culmination of his reflections on the meaning of life.

The post-war decade was just as fruitful for the writer. Maugham first turned to the genre of the historical novel. In the books Then and Now and Catalina, the past was presented to readers as a lesson in modernity. Maugham reflected in them about power and its impact on man, about the politics of rulers and about patriotism. These last novels were written in a manner new to him and were deeply tragic.

After the loss of Haxton, Maugham renewed his intimate relationship with Alan Searle, a young man from the slums of London whom he met in 1928 when he was working for a hospital charity. Alan became the new secretary of the writer, adored Maugham, who officially adopted him, depriving his daughter Elizabeth of the right to inherit, after learning that she was going to limit his property rights through the courts. Later, Elizabeth through the court still achieved recognition of her right to inheritance, and Maugham's adoption of Searle became invalid.

In 1947, the writer approved the Somerset Maugham Award, which was awarded to the best English writers under the age of thirty-five. Having reached the age when the need to be critical of his surroundings begins to prevail, Maugham devoted himself entirely to essay writing. In 1948, his book Great Writers and Their Novels was published, the heroes of which were Fielding and Jane Austen, Stendhal and Balzac, Dickens and Emily Bronte, Melville and Flaubert, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, who accompanied Maugham in life. Among the six essays that formed the collection Mood Shifting, memoirs of novelists whom he knew well - H. James, H. Wells, and A. Bennett, attracted attention, as well as the article "The Decline and Destruction of a Detective."

Maugham's last book, Points of View, published in 1958, included a long essay on a short story, of which he became a recognized master in the pre-war years. In his later years, Maugham came to the conclusion that a writer is more than a storyteller. There was a time when he liked to repeat after Wilde that the purpose of art is to give pleasure, that amusement is an indispensable and main condition for success. Now he clarified that by entertaining he understands not what amuses, but what arouses interest: "The more intellectual amusement a novel offers, the better it is."

On December 15, 1965, Somerset Maugham died at the age of 92 in the French town of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat from pneumonia. His ashes were scattered under the wall of the Maugham Library, at the Royal School in Canterbury.

Maugham himself said the best about her life: “For my own pleasure, for entertainment and to satisfy what felt like an organic need, I built my life according to some kind of plan - with a beginning, middle and end, as well as from those I met there. and here I was building a play, a novel, or a story. "

The text was prepared by Tatiana Khalina ( halimoshka )

Used materials:

Materials of the site "Wikipedia"

William Somerset Maugham: The Facets of Talent by G. E. Ionkis

Materials of the site www.modernlib.ru

Materials of the site www.bookmix.ru

Prose

Liza of Lambeth (1897)
The Making of a Saint (1898)
"Landmarks" (Orientations, 1899)
The Hero (1901)
Mrs Craddock (1902)
The Merry-go-round (1904)
The Land of the Blessed Virgin: Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia (1905)
The Bishop's Apron (1906)
The Explorer (1908)
The Magician (1908)
Of Human Bondage (1915; Russian translation 1959)
The Moon and Sixpence (1919; Russian translation 1927, 1960)
The Trembling of a Leaf (1921)
On A Chinese Screen (1922)
The Painted Veil (1925)
The Casuarina Tree (1926)
The Letter (Stories of Crime) (1930)
Ashenden, or the British Agent (1928). Novels
The Gentleman In The Parlor: A Record of a Journey From Rangoon to Haiphong (1930)
Cakes and Ale: or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard, 1930
The Book Bag (1932)
The Narrow Corner (1932)
Ah King (1933)
The Judgment Seat (1934)
Don Fernando (1935)
Cosmopolitans (Very Short Stories, 1936)
My South Sea Island (1936)
"Theater" (Theater, 1937)
The Summing Up (1938, Russian translation 1957)
"Christmas holidays" (Christmas Holiday, 1939)
Princess September and The Nightingale (1939)
France At War (1940)
Books and You (1940)
The Mixture As Before (1940)
Up at the Villa (1941)
Strictly Personal (1941)
The Hour Before Dawn (1942)
The Unconquered (1944)
The Razor's Edge (1944)
“Then and now. A novel about Niccolo Machiavelli "(Then and Now, 1946)
Of Human Bondage - An Address (1946)
Creatures of Circumstance (1947)
Catalina (1948)
Quartet (1948)
Great Novelists and Their Novels (1948)
A Writer's Notebook (1949)
Trio (1950)
The Writer's Point of View "(1951)
Encore (1952)
The Vagrant Mood (1952)
The Noble Spaniard (1953)
Ten Novels and Their Authors (1954)
Points of View (1958)
Purely For My Pleasure (1962)
The Force of Circumstance ("Selected Short Stories")
"Wreckage" (Flotsam and Jetsam, "Selected Short Stories")
The Creative Impulse ("Selected Short Stories")
Virtue ("Selected Short Stories")
The Treasure ("Selected Short Stories")
In a Strange Land ("Selected Short Stories")
The Consul ("Selected Short Stories")
"Exactly a dozen" (The Round Dozen, "Selected Short Stories")
Footprints in the Jungle, "Selected Short Stories"
"A Friend In Need"

William Somerset Maugham was born on January 25, 1874 at the British Embassy in Paris. This birth of a child was more planned than accidental. Since at that time a law was being written in France, the essence of which was that all young men born on the territory of France had to be drafted into the army upon reaching the age of majority. Naturally, the very thought that their son, in whose veins English blood flows, could soon join the ranks of the army that would fight against England, frightened the parents and demanded decisive action. There was only one way to avoid this kind of situation - by giving birth to a child on the territory of the British embassy, which, according to existing laws, was equivalent to being born on the territory of England. In the family, William was the fourth child. And from early childhood he was predicted a lawyer's future, tk. both his father and grandfather were prominent lawyers, the two brothers later became lawyers, and the second brother, Frederick Herbert, who later became Lord Chancellor and Peer of England, was considered the most successful. But, as time has shown, the plans were not destined to come true.

Being born in Paris could not but affect the child. So, for example, a boy under eleven years old spoke only French. And the reason that prompted the child to start learning English was the sudden death of his mother Edith from consumption when he was eight, and two years later, his father also dies. As a result, the boy finds himself in the care of his own uncle Henry Maugham, who lived in the town of Whitstable in England, in the county of Kent. My uncle was a parish priest.

This period of life was not happy for little Maugham. Uncle and his wife were very callous, boring and rather mean people. Also, the boy faced an acute problem of communicating with his guardians. Not knowing English, he could not establish relations with new relatives. And, in the end, the result of such upheavals in the life of the young man was that he began to stutter and this disease will remain with Maugham for the rest of his life.

To study, William Maugham was sent to the Royal School, which was located in Canterbury - an ancient town located southeast of London. And here little William had more reasons for concern and worries than for happiness. For his natural short stature and stuttering, he was constantly teased by his peers. English with a distinctive French accent was also the reason ridicule.

Therefore, moving to Germany in 1890 to study inThe University of Heidelberg was an indescribable, indescribable happiness. Here he finally begins to study literature and philosophy, with all his might tries to get rid of his inherent accent. Here he will write his first work - a biography of the composer Meyerbeer. True, this essay will not cause a "stormy applause" from the publisher and Maugham will burn it, but this will be his first deliberate attempt at writing.

In 1892, Maugham moved to London and entered medical school. This decision was not caused by a craving and aptitude for medicine, but was made only because a young man from a decent family needed to get some more or less decent profession, and his uncle's pressure in this matter also exerted its influence and pressure. Subsequently, he received a diploma in general practitioner and surgeon (October 1897), and even worked for some time at the hospital of St. Thomas, which was located in one of the poorest quarters of London. But the most important thing during this period for him is literature. Even then, he clearly understands that this is precisely his vocation and at night he begins to write his first creations. On weekends, he visits the theaters and the Tivoli music hall, where he will revisit all the performances that could only be seen from the back seats.

We will later see the period of life associated with his medical career in his novel "Lisa of Lambeth", which the publishing house"Fisher An Vin" released in 1897. The novel was accepted by both professionals and the general public. The first printings were sold out in a matter of weeks, which gave Maugham the confidence in the correctness of his choice towards literature, not medicine.

1898 reveals William Maugham Somerset as a playwright, he writes his first play "The Man of Honor", which will premiere on the stage of a modest theater only five years later. The play did not cause a furore, it was played only for two evenings, the reviews from critics were, to put it mildly, terrible. In fairness, it is worth noting that later, a year later, Maugham will remake this play, radically changing the ending. And already in the commercial theater The Avenue Tétre play will be shown over twenty times.

Despite a relatively unsuccessful first experience in drama, it will not be ten years before William Somerset Maugham becomes a well-known and acclaimed playwright.

The comedy Lady Frederick, which was staged in 1908 at the Court Tietre, enjoyed particular success.

A number of plays were also written that raise issues of inequality in society, hypocrisy, and corruption of representatives of different levels of government. These plays were received differently by society and critics - some were harshly criticized, others praised for their wit and stage presence. Nevertheless, despite the ambiguity of the reviews, it should be noted that on the eve of the First World War, Maugham Somerset became a recognized playwright, performances based on whose works were successfully staged both in England and abroad.

At the beginning of the war, the writer served with the British Red Cross. In the future, the staff of the well-known British intelligence MI-5 recruited him into their ranks. So the writer becomes an intelligence officer and is sent first to Switzerland for a year, and then to Russia to carry out a secret mission, the purpose of which was to prevent Russia from leaving the war. He met with such well-known political players of that time as A.F. Kerensky, B.V. Savinkov. etc.

Later S. Maugham would write that this idea was doomed to failure in advance and that he turned out to be no agent. The first positive aspect of this mission was Maugham's discovery of Russian literature. In particular, he discovered Dostoevsky F.M., and was especially amazed by the works of A.P. Chekhov, even began to learn Russian in order to read Anton Pavlovich in the original; the second moment was Maugham's writing of a collection of short stories "Ashenden or British Agent" (original title "Ashenden or British Agent"), dedicated to spy themes.

A special place in the writer's work is the autobiographical novel The Burden of Human Passions (1915). Such writers of the time as Thomas Wolfe, Theodore Dreiser recognized the novel as a genius.

In the same period of time, Maugham gravitates towards a new direction for him - social and psychological drama. Examples of such works are "Unknown" (1920), "For Merit" (1932), "Sheppie" (1933).

When World War II broke out, Maugham was in France. And he was there not by chance, but by order of the Ministry of Information, he had to study the mood of the French, visit ships in Toulon. The result of such actions were articles that give the reader complete confidence that France will fight to the end and withstand this confrontation. His book France at War (1940) is also permeated with the same sentiments. And just three months after the release of the book, France will surrender, and Maugham will need to urgently leave the country for England, since there were rumors that the Germans had blacklisted his name. From England, he travels to the United States, where he arrives until the end of the war.

Returning to France after the war was full of sadness - his house was plundered, the country was in complete devastation, but the main positive moment was that the hated fascism was not just stopped, but destroyed to the ground and it was possible to live and write on.

It is no coincidence that Somerset Maugham wrote historical novels in this post-war period. In the books "Then and Now" (1946), "Catalina" (1948), the writer tells about power and its influence on a person, about rulers and their politics, and pays attention to true patriotism. In these novels we see a new manner of writing novels, there is a lot of tragedy in them.

"Razor's Edge" (1944) is one of the last, if not the last, significant novels of the writer. The novel was the final one in many ways. When one day Maugham was asked: "How long did he write this book," the answer was - "All my life."

In 1947, the writer decides to approve the Somerset Maugham Award, which should be awarded to the best English writers under the age of 35.

In June 1952, the writer was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature at Oxford.

In his last years, the writer plunged into writing essays. And the book "Great Writers and Their Novels", published in 1848. is a vivid confirmation of this. In this book, the reader meets such characters as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Dickens and Emily Bronte, Fielding and Jane Austen, Stendhal and Balzac, Melville and Flaubert. All these great people accompanied Maugham throughout his long life.

Later, in 1952, came out his collection "Changeable Mood", consisting of six essays, where we see memories of such novelists as H. James, H. Wells and A. Bennett, with whom Somerset Maugham was personally acquainted.

On December 15, 1965, the writer died. It happened in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat (city in France). The cause of death was pneumonia. As such, the writer does not have a burial place, it was decided to scatter his ashes under the wall of the Maugham Library, at the Royal School in Canterbury.

Somerset Maugham was born on January 25, 1874 at the British Embassy in Paris. This birth of a child was more planned than accidental. Since at that time a law was being written in France, the essence of which was that all young men born on the territory of France had to be drafted into the army upon reaching the age of majority.

Naturally, the very thought that their son, in whose veins English blood flows, could soon join the ranks of the army that would fight against England, frightened the parents and demanded decisive action. There was only one way to avoid this kind of situation - by giving birth to a child on the territory of the British embassy, which, according to existing laws, was equivalent to being born on the territory of England.

In the family, William was the fourth child. And from early childhood he was predicted a lawyer's future, since both his father and grandfather were prominent lawyers, two brothers later became lawyers, and the second brother Frederick Herbert, who later became Lord Chancellor and Peer of England, was considered the most successful. But, as time has shown, the plans were not destined to come true.

To study, William Maugham was sent to the Royal School, which was located in Canterbury - an ancient town located southeast of London. And here little William had more reasons for concern and worries than for happiness. For his natural short stature and stuttering, he was constantly teased by his peers. English with its characteristic French accent was also a source of ridicule.

Therefore, moving to Germany in 1890 to study at the University of Heidelberg was indescribable, indescribable happiness. Here he finally begins to study literature and philosophy, with all his might tries to get rid of his inherent accent. Here he will write his first work - a biography of the composer Meyerbeer. True, this essay will not cause a "stormy applause" from the publisher and Maugham will burn it, but this will be his first deliberate attempt at writing.

But the most important thing during this period for him is literature. Even then, he clearly understands that this is precisely his vocation and at night he begins to write his first creations. On weekends, he visits the theaters and the Tivoli music hall, where he will revisit all the performances that could only be seen from the back seats.

The period of his life associated with his medical career can be seen in his novel Lisa of Lambeth, which was published by Fisher Unwin in 1897. The novel was accepted by both professionals and the general public. The first printings were sold out in a matter of weeks, which gave Maugham the confidence in the correctness of his choice towards literature, not medicine.

1898 reveals William Maugham Somerset as a playwright, he writes his first play "The Man of Honor", which will premiere on the stage of a modest theater only five years later. The play did not cause a furore, it was played only for two evenings, the reviews from critics were, to put it mildly, terrible. In fairness, it is worth noting that later, a year later, Maugham will remake this play, radically changing the ending. And already in the commercial theater "Avenue-tietre" the play will be shown more than twenty times.

Despite a relatively unsuccessful first experience in drama, it will not be ten years before William Somerset Maugham becomes a well-known and acclaimed playwright. The comedy Lady Frederick, which was staged in 1908 at the Court Tietre, enjoyed particular success. A number of plays were also written that raise issues of inequality in society, hypocrisy, and corruption of representatives of different levels of government.

These plays were received differently by society and critics - some were harshly criticized, others praised for their wit and stage presence. Nevertheless, despite the ambiguity of the reviews, it should be noted that on the eve of the First World War, Maugham Somerset became a recognized playwright, performances based on whose works were successfully staged both in England and abroad.

Later, Maugham wrote that this idea was doomed to failure in advance and that he turned out to be no agent. The first positive aspect of this mission was Maugham's discovery of Russian literature. In particular, he discovered Dostoevsky F.M., and was especially amazed by the works of A.P. Chekhov, even began to learn Russian in order to read Anton Pavlovich in the original. The second moment was Maugham's writing of a collection of short stories "Ashenden or the British Agent", dedicated to spy themes.

In the period between the two world wars, the writer writes a lot, and also travels often, which gives him the basis for writing new and new works. Now these are not only novels or plays, but a number of short stories, essays, essays have also been written. A special place in the writer's work is the autobiographical novel "Burden of Human Passions". Such writers of the time as Thomas Wolfe and Theodore Dreiser recognized the novel as a genius. In the same period of time, Maugham gravitates towards a new direction for him - social and psychological drama. Examples of such works are "Unknown", "For Merit", "Sheppie".

And just three months after the release of the book, France will surrender, and Maugham will need to urgently leave the country for England, since there were rumors that the Germans had blacklisted his name. From England, he travels to the United States, where he arrives until the end of the war. Returning to France after the war was full of sadness - his house was plundered, the country was in complete devastation, but the main positive moment was that the hated fascism was not just stopped, but destroyed to the ground and it was possible to live and write on.

It is no coincidence that Somerset Maugham wrote historical novels in this post-war period. In the books Then and Now and Catalina, the writer tells about power and its influence on a person, about rulers and their policies, and pays attention to true patriotism. In these novels, a new manner of writing novels is visible, there is a lot of tragedy in them. "Razor's Edge" is one of the last, if not the last, significant novels of the writer. The novel was the final one in many ways. When one day Maugham was asked: "How long did he write this book," the answer was - "All my life."

In 1947, the writer decides to approve the Somerset Maugham Award, which should be awarded to the best English writers under the age of 35. In June 1952, the writer was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature at Oxford.

In his last years, he immersed himself in writing essays. And the book "Great Writers and Their Novels", published in 1848, is a vivid confirmation of this. In this book, the reader meets such heroes as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Dickens and Emily Bronte, Fielding and Jane Austen, Stendhal and Balzac, Melville and Flaubert. All these great people accompanied Maugham throughout his long life.

Later, in 1952, his collection "Changeable Mood" was published, consisting of six essays, where memories of such novelists as H. James, H. Wells and A. Bennett, with whom Somerset Maugham was personally acquainted, are visible.

The writer died on December 15, 1965. It happened in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France. The cause of death was pneumonia. As such, the writer does not have a burial place, it was decided to scatter his ashes under the wall of the Maugham Library, at the Royal School in Canterbury.

Somerset Maugham: the best works. William Somerset Maugham Somerset Maugham's Personal Life

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