WM
Photo of W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham

Writer, Additional Credits
Died December 15, 1965 (91 years)
William Somerset Maugham CH (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories.

Maugham's novels after Liza of Lambeth include Of Human Bondage (1915), The Moon and Sixpence (1919), The Painted Veil (1925), Cakes and Ale (1930) and The Razor's Edge (1944). His short stories were published in collections such as The Casuarina Tree (1926) and The Mixture as Before (1940); many of them have been adapted for radio, cinema and television. His great popularity and prodigious sales provoked adverse reactions from highbrow critics, many of whom sought to belittle him as merely competent. More recent assessments generally rank Of Human Bondage − a book with a large autobiographical element − as a masterpiece, and his short stories are widely held in high critical regard. Maugham's plain prose style became known for its lucidity, but his reliance on clichés attracted adverse critical comment.

During the First World War Maugham worked for the British Secret Service, later drawing on his experiences for stories published in the 1920s. Although primarily homosexual, he attempted to conform to some extent with the norms of his day. He became a father and husband, marrying Syrie Wellcome in 1917, three years into an affair that produced their daughter, Liza. The marriage lasted for twelve years, but before, during and after it, Maugham's principal partner was a younger man, Gerald Haxton. Together they made extended visits to Asia, the South Seas and other destinations; Maugham gathered material for his fiction wherever they went. They lived together in the French Riviera, where Maugham entertained lavishly. After Haxton's death in 1944, Alan Searle became Maugham's secretary-companion for the rest of the author's life. Maugham gave up writing novels shortly after the Second World War, and his last years were marred by senility. He died at the age of 91.

Description above from the Wikipedia article W. Somerset Maugham, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Movies & Shows on Plex
  • Of Human Bondage
  • Four Star Playhouse
Known For
  • The Painted Veil
  • Being Julia
  • Of Human Bondage
  • The Letter
  • The Razor's Edge
  • Secret Agent
  • Up at the Villa
  • The Painted Veil
  • Too Many Husbands
  • Christmas Holiday
  • Rain
  • Sadie Thompson
  • Of Human Bondage
  • Quartet
  • The Moon and Sixpence
  • Miss Sadie Thompson
  • The Circle
  • Somewhere in the Night
  • The Unfaithful
  • Three for the Show
  • The Letter
  • Another Dawn
  • The Beachcomber
  • Three Cases of Murder

Filmography

2006
The Painted Veil · as Novel
2004
2000
Up at the Villa · as Novel
1984
The Razor's Edge · as Novel
1982
The Letter · as Novel
1979
Театр (TV Series) · as Novel
1978
Teatris · as Novel
1978
1965
Play of the Month (TV Series) · as Novel
1965
1964
Of Human Bondage · as Novel
1962
1959
1957
The Seventh Sin · as Novel
1950
Trio · as Screenplay
1948
Studio One (TV Series) · as Novel
1947
The Unfaithful · as Novel
1946
The Razor's Edge · as Novel
1946
Of Human Bondage · as Novel
1944
1944
Christmas Holiday · as Novel
1942
1936
Isle of Fury · as Novel
1936
Secret Agent · as Novel
1935
The Right to Live · as Novel
1934
The Painted Veil · as Novel
1934
1933
The Narrow Corner · as Novel
1931
The Letter · as Novel
1927
Vad kvinnan vill · as Novel
1926
The Magician · as Novel

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