Writer Maugham biography. William Somerset Maugham - short biography

Name: Somerset Maugham (William Somerset Maugham)

Age: 91 years old

Activity: writer

Family status: was divorced

Somerset Maugham: biography

Somerset Maugham is the author of 21 novels, short story writer and playwright, critic and socialite, moved in the highest circles of London, New York and Paris. The writer created in the genre of realism, focusing on the traditions of naturalism, modernism and neo-romanticism.

Childhood and youth

William Somerset Maugham was born on January 25, 1874. The son of a lawyer at the British Embassy in Paris, he spoke French before he mastered English. Somerset was the youngest child in the family. The three brothers were much older, and at the time of their departure to study in England, the boy was left alone in his parents’ house.

He spent a lot of time with his mother and was attached to her. The mother died of tuberculosis when the child was 8 years old. This loss was the greatest shock in Maugham's life. The experiences provoked a speech impediment: Somerset began to stutter. This feature remained with him throughout his life.

The father died when the boy was 10 years old. The family broke up. The older brothers studied to become lawyers at Cambridge, and Somerset was sent under the tutelage of a priest uncle, in whose house he spent his youth.

The child grew up lonely and withdrawn. Children raised in England did not accept him. The French-speaking Maugham's stutter and accent were ridiculed. On this basis, shyness became more and more intense. The boy had no friends. Books became the only outlet for the future writer, who studied at a boarding school.

At the age of 15, Somerset persuaded his uncle to let him go to Germany to study German language. Heidelberg was the place where he first felt free. The young man listened to lectures on philosophy, studied drama and became interested in theater. Somerset's interests concerned creativity, Spinoza, and.

Maugham returned to Britain at the age of 18. He had a sufficient level of education to choose a future profession. His uncle directed him towards the path of a clergyman, but Somerset chose to go to London, where in 1892 he became a student at the medical school at St. Thomas's Hospital.

Literature

The study of medicine and the practice of medicine made Somerset not only a certified physician, but also a man who saw through people. Medicine left its mark on the writer’s style. He rarely used metaphors or hyperbole.

The first steps in literature were weak, since among Maugham’s acquaintances there were no people who could guide him on the right path. He translated Ibsen's works in order to study the technique of creating drama, and wrote stories. In 1897, the first novel, “Lisa of Lambeth,” was published.

Analyzing the works of Fielding and Flaubert, the writer also focused on trends actual modern times. He worked hard and fruitfully, gradually becoming one of the most readable authors. His books sold quickly, bringing income to the writer.

Maugham studied people, using their destinies and characters in his work. He believed that the most interesting things are hidden in the everyday. This was confirmed by the novel “Lisa of Lambeth,” in which the influence of creativity was felt.

In the novel "Mrs. Craddock" the author's passion for prose was visible. For the first time he asked questions about life and love. Maugham's plays made him a wealthy man. The premiere of Lady Frederick, which took place in 1907, established him as a playwright.

Maugham adhered to the traditions glorified by the Restoration theater. Comedies were authoritative for him. Maugham's plays are divided into comic, where ideas similar to reflections are voiced, and dramatic, reflecting social problems.

Maugham's work reflected his experience of participating in the First and Second World Wars. The author reflected his vision in the works “For Military Merit” and “On the Edge of the Razor.” During the war years, Maugham was in an autosanitary unit in France, in intelligence, working in Switzerland and in Russia. In the final, he ended up in Scotland, where he was treated for tuberculosis.

The writer traveled a lot, visited different countries Europe and Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands. This enriched his inner world and gave him impressions that he used in his creativity. The life of Somerset Maugham was eventful and interesting facts.

"The Burden of Human Passions" and autobiographical work“On Human Bondage” are novels that combine these categories. In the novel “The Moon and a Penny,” Maugham talks about the tragedy of an artist, in “The Veil of Color” - about the fate of a scientist, and in “Theater” - about the everyday life of an actress.

Somerset Maugham's novellas and stories are distinguished by their sharp plots and psychologism. The author keeps the reader in suspense and uses surprise. The presence of the author’s “I” in works is their traditional feature.

Personal life

Critics and biographers have discussed the ambiguity of Maugham's persona. His first biographers described the writer as a man of bad character, a cynic and a misogynist, unable to take criticism. An intelligent, ironic and hardworking writer purposefully paved his way to literary heights.

He focused not on intellectuals and aesthetes, but on those for whom his works were relevant. Maugham forbade the publication of personal correspondence after his death. The ban was lifted in 2009. This made some of the nuances of his life clearer.

There were two women in the writer's life. He was very fond of Ethelvina Jones, known as Sue Jones. Her image is used in the novel “Pies and Beer”. The daughter of a popular playwright, Etelvina was a successful 23-year-old actress when she met Maugham. She had just divorced her husband and quickly succumbed to the writer’s advances.

Miss Jones was famous for her easy-going nature and approachability. Maugham did not consider this vicious. At first he did not plan a wedding, but soon changed his mind. The writer’s marriage proposal was refused. The girl was pregnant from someone else.

Somerset Maugham married Siri Maugham, the daughter of a philanthropist known for his charitable work. Siri has already been married. At 22, she married Henry Wellcome, who was 48 years old. The man was the owner of a pharmaceutical corporation.

The family quickly fell apart due to his wife's infidelity with the owner of a chain of London department stores. Maugham met the girl in 1911. Their union produced a daughter, Elizabeth. At that time, Siri was not divorced from Wellcome. The connection with Maugham turned out to be scandalous. The girl attempted suicide because of the demands ex-husband for divorce.

Maugham acted like a gentleman and married Siri, although his feelings for her quickly disappeared. Soon the couple began to live separately. In 1929, their official divorce took place. Today, Maugham’s bisexuality is no secret to anyone, which is neither confirmed nor denied by his biographers.

The alliance with Gerald Haxton confirmed the writer’s passions. Somerset Maugham was 40, and his companion was 22 years old. For 30 years, Haxton accompanied Maugham as his travel secretary. He drank, gambled, and spent Maugham's money.

The writer used Haxton's acquaintances as prototypes for his works. It is known that Gerald even looked for new partners for Maugham. One of these men was David Posner.

The seventeen-year-old boy met Maugham in 1943, when he was 69 years old. Haxton died of pulmonary edema and was succeeded by Alan Searle, an admirer and new lover of the writer. In 1962, Maugham officially adopted his secretary, depriving his daughter Elizabeth of inheritance rights. But the daughter managed to defend her legal rights, and the court declared the adoption invalid.

Death

Somerset Maugham died of pneumonia at the age of 92. This happened on December 15, 1965 in the provincial French town of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, near Nice. Contrary to French laws, the patient who died within the hospital walls was not subjected to an autopsy, but was transported home and an official declaration of death was made the next day.

The writer's relatives and friends stated that he found last refuge in your favorite villa. The writer does not have a burial place, as he was cremated. Maugham's ashes were scattered near the walls of the library at the Royal School in Canterbury. This establishment bears his name.

Bibliography

• 1897 - "Lisa of Lambeth"
• 1901 - "Hero"
• 1902 - "Mrs. Craddock"
• 1904 - “Carousel”
• 1908 - “The Magician”
• 1915 - “The Burden of Human Passions”
• 1919 - “The Moon and a Penny”
• 1922 - “On a Chinese screen”
• 1925 - “Patterned cover”
• 1930 - “Pies and Beer, or Skeleton in the Closet”
• 1931 - “Six stories written in the first person”
• 1937 - “Theater”
• 1939 - “Christmas Vacation”
• 1944 - “The Razor’s Edge”
• 1948 - “Catalina”

Quotes

Quotes, aphorisms and sayings of the witty Maugham are relevant today. They comment on life situations, people’s perceptions, the author’s position and his attitude towards his own work.

"Before you write new novel, I always re-read Candide, so that later I can unconsciously measure up to this standard of clarity, grace and wit.”

“I would not go to see my plays at all, neither on the opening night, nor on any other evening, if I did not consider it necessary to test their effect on the public, in order to learn from this how to write them.”

“Dying is a terribly boring and painful task. My advice to you is to avoid anything like that.”

“The funny thing about life is that if you refuse to accept anything but the best, that’s often what you get.”

English writer Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was born and died in France.

He was the youngest (sixth) son of a lawyer at the British Embassy. The parents specially prepared for the birth on the embassy grounds so that the child would have legal grounds to be considered a British citizen. Maugham's first native language was French. On French Somerset spoke for the first ten years of his life. He lost his parents at the age of 10, after which the boy was sent to England, where he lived in the city of Whitstable in the family of his uncle, a vicar.

It so happened that upon his arrival in England, Maugham began to stutter, and this remained for the rest of his life.

“I was short; hardy, but not physically strong; I stuttered, was shy and in poor health. I had no inclination for sport, which occupies such an important place in English life; and - either for one of these reasons, or from birth - I instinctively avoided people, which prevented me from getting along with them.”

He graduated from the University of Heidelberg, then studied medicine in London for six years. He received his doctorate in 1897, but left medical practice after his first novels and plays became successful.

For ten years Maugham lived and wrote in Paris. His first novel, Lisa of Lambeth, appeared in 1897. In 1903, the first play, “A Man of Honor,” was written, and already in 1904, four of Maugham’s plays were performed simultaneously on stages in London.

Almost a real breakthrough autobiographical novel"The Burden of Human Passions" (1915), which is considered Maugham's best work.

During the First World War, under the guise of a reporter, Maugham worked for British intelligence in Russia in order to prevent it from withdrawing from the war. From August to November 1917 he was in Petrograd, meeting several times with Alexander Kerensky, Boris Savinkov and other political figures. Left Russia through Sweden due to the failure of his mission (October Revolution).

The intelligence officer’s work was reflected in the collection of 14 short stories “Ashenden, or the British Agent.”

Stuttering and health problems prevented further career in this field.

Maugham and a friend go on a trip to East Asia, the Pacific Islands and Mexico.

In 1928 he settled in France.

Maugham continued his successful career as a playwright, writing the plays The Circle (1921) and Sheppey (1933). The novels “The Moon and a Penny” (1919), “Pies and Beer” (1930), “Theater” (1937), and “The Razor’s Edge” (1944) were also successful.

Maugham believed that true harmony lies in the contradictions of society, that what is normal is not really normal. " Everyday life is the richest field for a writer to explore.“- he stated in the book “Summing Up” (1938).

Maugham's popularity abroad in the thirties was higher than in England. He once said: “Most people do not see anything, I see very clearly in front of my nose; great writers can see through a brick wall. My vision is not so insightful."

In 1928, Maugham bought a villa in Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera. This villa became the writer's home for the rest of his life; it played the role of one of the great literary and social salons. The writer was sometimes visited by Herbert Wells, Winston Churchill, and occasionally Soviet writers were here. By 1940, Somerset Maugham had already become one of the most famous and wealthy writers in English. fiction.

In 1944, Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge was published. During the Second World War, Maugham, who was already over sixty, was for the most part in USA. He was forced to leave France by the occupation and the inclusion of Maugham's name on the Nazi blacklists.

The writer approved the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1947, which was awarded to the best English writers under the age of 35.

When Maugham felt that traveling had nothing more to offer him, he gave up traveling:

After 1948, Maugham abandoned fiction and drama, writing essays mainly on literary topics.

On December 15, 1965, Somerset Maugham died at the age of 92 in the French town of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, near Nice, from pneumonia. Dying, he said:

“Dying is a boring and joyless thing. My advice to you is never do this.” 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.

Somerset Maugham was the most popular prose writer and playwright of the 30s - he wrote more than 78 books, theaters staged more than 30 of his plays. In addition, Maugham's works have often been successfully filmed.

If we talk about the writer's personal life, Somerset Maugham was for a long time married Siri Welcome, with whom he had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth. The couple later divorced. At one time he was in love with actress Sue Jones, whom he was ready to marry again. However, Maugham had the longest relationship with the American Gerald Haxton, a drunkard and avid gambler who was his secretary.

In his autobiography "Summing Up" (1938), he said that he "stood in the first row of the second-rate."

About Somerset Maugham:

• “Before writing a new novel, I always reread Candide, so that later I can unconsciously measure myself by this standard of clarity, grace and wit.”

• He always placed his desk opposite a blank wall so that nothing would distract him from his work. He worked three to four hours in the morning, fulfilling his self-imposed quota of 1000-1500 words.

• “I would not go to see my plays at all, neither on the opening night, nor on any other evening, if I did not consider it necessary to test their effect on the public, in order to learn from this how to write them.”

Maugham's aphorisms:

• “The God who can be understood is no longer God.”

• “Life is ten percent what you do in it, and ninety percent how you take it.”

William Somerset Maugham

Date and place of birth: January 25, 1874, Embassy of the United Kingdom, Paris, French Third Republic.

British writer, one of the most successful prose writers of the 1930s, author of 78 books, British intelligence agent.

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 in Paris, where his father was a lawyer at the British Embassy. Having lost his mother for eight years and his father for ten years, Maugham was raised in London by his uncle, in whose house an atmosphere of Puritan severity reigned. He then studied at a boarding school in Canterbury and at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

To acquire a profession, he entered the medical school at St. Thomas in London. Here he acquired knowledge in medicine and certain life experience. He faced not only physical suffering people, but also with the poverty of the slum dwellers of London's East End, with social inequality.

Medical practice that brought him closer to ordinary people, gave him material for entering literature. The success of the first novels “Lisa of Lambeth” and “Mrs. Cradock,” although very modest, forced Maugham to part with medicine and devote himself entirely to writing. True, his first novels did not bring him much income. Having subsequently become one of the wealthiest writers in the world, Maugham recalled with a grin that for the first ten years he earned an average of about one hundred pounds a year with his pen, which was not much more than the earnings of low-paid day laborers.

Pushed by material motives, Maugham became interested in drama. During the first two decades this century he writes play after play. Some of them, in particular “Man of Honour”, “Lady Frederick”, “Smith”, “The Promised Land”, “The Circle”, were successful, and there were years when more plays by Maugham were performed simultaneously on the stages of England than by Bernard Shaw .

However, working on the plays did not bring complete satisfaction to the author himself. He wrote for the theater, caring most of all about the stage entertainment of his works. This determined his success with the viewer, but also limited creative possibilities, forcing one to lay rich life material into the Procrustean bed of a certain plot, no matter how skillfully and fascinatingly it is constructed. At the zenith of his dramatic fame, Maugham decided to write a novel in order, as he later admitted, “to free himself from the huge number of difficult memories that never ceased to haunt me.” After the publication of this novel, “The Burden of Human Passions,” which brought the author wide fame, he increasingly takes up the pen of a narrator rather than a playwright.

In the twenties of our century, Maugham also established himself as a master of the story. His short stories, varied in form, reveal to the reader the inner world of a person. Maugham tries to show the soul of a person, sometimes snatching him from the social environment.

B the time of human passions

But still among large number Of Maugham's novels, plays, stories and essays, the novel The Burden of Human Passion is most famous both in England and abroad. Let us note by the way that the title of the novel is taken from the title of one of the sections of Spinoza’s “Ethics”, which in literal translation reads: “On human slavery.” However, in order for the title of the novel to convey the meaning of this chapter of Spinoza’s treatise, Maugham agreed that this work should be called “The Burden of Human Passions” in the Russian edition.

The writer himself, answering the question why he does not consider “The Burden of Human Passions” his best novel, pointed out that this is just an “autobiographical book” that reflects his own painful experiences. In the author's preface to one of the American publications Maugham's novel calls it “semi-autobiographical” and notes: “I say semi-autobiographical because such a work is still fiction, and the author has the right to change the facts with which he deals as he sees fit.”

And indeed, many facts of his life that the author talks about in the novel have been changed - some are weakened, others are strengthened, others are given a different interpretation or expression. For example, the lameness that brings so much inconvenience and moral torment to the hero of the novel, Philip Carey, did not torment Maugham himself, but the writer suffered from another physical defect, a stutter, which caused him almost the same troubles and moral pain. The experiences of young Philip, judging by the confessions of the author himself, largely coincide with the experiences of Maugham. Like his hero, he lost his parents early, was raised in a family of relatives, and went through all the stages of his youthful quest.

But it would be wrong to assume that in the novel “The Burden of Human Passions” the author simply told the story of one hero, close to his own biography. The reader is presented with a motley gallery of various types, each with their own biographies and characters, described by the author with amazing care.

Maugham painted the life of certain layers of England of that time with such vividness that in many ways “The Burden of Human Passions” can be ranked alongside the significant works of the greatest English writers-realists.

The idealistic idea of ​​people underlies the main storyline novel - Philip's love for a woman who, according to all existing norms of relationships between a man and a woman, could not be loved by him. Maugham wanted to prove that a person can love not only contrary to reason, but also contrary to his very nature. This love for a narrow-minded, stupid, vicious, unscrupulous woman on the part of a person who is disgusted by everything ugly, who has refined tastes, sometimes seems simply unthinkable.

Acts from life

Somerset Maugham was born and died in France, but the writer was a subject of the British Crown - his parents arranged the birth in such a way that the child was born at the embassy.

“I would not go to see my plays at all, neither on the opening night, nor on any other evening, if I did not consider it necessary to test their effect on the public, in order to learn from this how to write them.”

At the age of 10, Maugham began to stutter, which he was never able to get rid of.

Despite the fact that Somerset Maugham was married for a long time to Siri Wellcome, with whom he had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, the writer was bisexual. At one time he was in love with actress Sue Jones, whom he was ready to marry again. But Maugham had the longest relationship with the American Gerald Haxton, an avid gambler and drunkard, who was his secretary.

During the First World War he collaborated with MI5. After the war, he worked in Russia with a secret mission, was in Petrograd in August-October 1917, where he was supposed to help the Provisional Government remain in power, and fled after the October Revolution.

Until the age of ten, William spoke only French. English language The writer began teaching after moving to England after the death of his parents.

Celebrities often visited his house on Cape Ferrat - Winston Churchill, Herbert Wells, Jean Cocteau, Noël Coward, and even several Soviet writers.

The intelligence officer’s work was reflected in the collection of 14 short stories “Ashenden, or the British Agent” -1928.

In 1928, Maugham bought a villa on the French Riviera. For forty years, the writer was helped by about 30 servants. However, the fashionable surroundings did not dampen him - every day he worked in his office, where he wrote at least 1,500 words.

“Before writing a new novel, I always re-read Candide, so that later I unconsciously equal this standard of clarity, grace and wit.”

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

Dying, he said: “Dying is a boring and joyless thing. My advice to you is never do this.”

In 1947, the Somerset Maugham Prize was established, which was awarded to English writers under the age of 35.

Maugham always placed his desk opposite a blank wall so that nothing would distract him from his work. He worked for three to four hours in the morning, fulfilling his self-imposed quota of 1000-1500 words.

Somerset Maugham has no grave - his ashes are scattered at the walls of the Maugham Library in Canterbury

Maugham wrote his first novel, “Lisa of Lambeth,” in 1897, but success came to the writer only in 1907 with the play “Lady Frederick.” But your very first literary experience- a biography of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer - he burned because it was rejected by the publisher.

Quotes and aphorisms

The funny thing about life is that if you refuse to accept anything other than the best, that's often what you get.

People may forgive you for the good you have done for them, but they rarely forget the evil they have done to you.

People love nothing more than to put a label on another person that once and for all frees them from the need to think.

A well-dressed person is one whose clothes are not noticed.

Dreams are not an escape from reality, but a means to get closer to it.

People are evil to the extent that they are unhappy.

There is no worse torture in the world than to love and despise at the same time.

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other.

Writing simply and clearly is as difficult as being sincere and kind.

There is only one success - to spend your life the way you want.

A woman will always sacrifice herself if given the right opportunity. This is her favorite way to please herself.

...for a person accustomed to reading, it becomes a drug, and he himself becomes its slave. Try to take his books away from him, and he will become gloomy, twitchy and restless, and then, like an alcoholic who, if left without alcohol, attacks the shelves.

Alas, in our imperfect world it is much easier to get rid of good habits than bad ones.

Kindness is the only value in this illusory world, which can be an end in itself.

Life is ten percent what you do in it, and ninety percent how you receive it.

Knowing the past is unpleasant enough; knowing the future would be simply unbearable.

Tolerance is another name for indifference.

Each generation laughs at its fathers, laughs and laughs at its grandfathers and admires its great-grandfathers.

A person is not what he wants to be, but what he cannot help being.

The most valuable thing life has taught me is: don’t regret anything.

We are no longer the people we were last year, nor are we the people we love. But it’s wonderful if, while we change, we continue to love those who have also changed.

And women can keep secrets. But they cannot keep silent about the fact that they kept silent about the secret.

Writer.

“As experience tells me, you can achieve success in 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 disparate facts. It will help to see the whole behind the particular... However, if a writer sees the essence of things incorrectly, then imagination will only aggravate his mistakes, but correctly he can only see what he knows from personal experience.” S. Maugham

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

In his works, Maugham comprehended the problems of a universal human 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 am, without a doubt, considered one of the most indifferent people in the world. I'm a skeptic, this is not the same thing, a skeptic, because I have good eyes. My eyes tell my heart: hide, old man, you are funny. And the heart hides."

William Somerset Maugham was born on January 25, 1874 in the family of a hereditary lawyer who served in the English embassy in Paris. Maugham's childhood, spent in France, passed in an atmosphere of goodwill, affectionate care and tender love of his mother, and childhood impressions determined much of his later life.

An Englishman, Maugham spoke predominantly French until the age of ten. He also graduated from primary school in France, and his English was later laughed at by his classmates for a long time when he returned to England. “I was embarrassed by the British,” Maugham admitted. He was eight years old when his mother died, and at the age of ten Maugham lost his father. This happened when the house in which his family was supposed to live was completed on the outskirts of Paris. But there was no more family - Somerset's older brothers studied at Cambridge, and were preparing to become lawyers, and Willie was sent to England in the care of his priest uncle Henry Maugham. In his parsonage and passed school years Maugham, who grew up lonely and withdrawn, felt like an outsider at school, and was very different from the boys growing up in England, who laughed at Maugham's stutter and the way he spoke 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 had a constant wariness, a fear of being humiliated, and developed the habit of observing everything from a certain distance.

Books and a passion for reading helped Maugham escape from his surroundings. Willie lived in a world of books, among which his favorites were the tales of “The Arabian Nights”, “Alice in Wonderland” by Carroll, “Waverley” by Scott and the adventure novels of Captain Marryat. Maugham drew well, loved music and could apply for a place at Cambridge, but he was not deeply interested in it. He had 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 communicating with Field could not outweigh what Maugham had to learn in the classrooms and dormitories of the boarding school for boys.

The health status of the nephew who was growing up 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 ignited minds with lectures on Descartes, Spinoza, Schopenhauer; Wagner's music was amazing, his theory musical drama opened unknown distances, Ibsen’s plays, translated into German and staged on stage, excited and broke 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 autumn 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 engaged in medicine, I systematically studied English, French, Italian and Latin literature. I read a lot of books on history, some on philosophy and, of course, on natural science and medicine.”

Started in third year medical practice unexpectedly interested him. And three years of hard work in the hospital wards of one of the poorest areas of London helped Maugham understand human nature much deeper than the books he had previously read. And Somerset concluded: "I don't know best school for a writer than being a doctor." “During these three years,” Maugham wrote in his autobiographical book “Summing Up,” “I witnessed all the emotions of which a person is capable. It ignited my instinct as a playwright, stirred the writer in me... I saw people die. I saw how they endured pain. I saw what hope, fear, relief look like; I saw the black shadows that despair casts on faces; I saw courage and perseverance.”

Practicing medicine affected the characteristics creative manner Maugham. Like other physician writers Sinclair Lewis and John O'Hara, his prose was devoid of exaggeration. The strict regime - from nine to six in the hospital - left Maugham free only in the evenings for literary studies, which Somerset spent reading books, and still learned to write. He translated Ibsen's "Ghosts", trying to study the playwright's technique, wrote plays and stories. Maugham sent the manuscripts of two stories to the publisher Fisher Unwin, and one of them received a favorable review from E. Garnet, a well-known authority in literary circles. Garnet advised the unknown the author to continue writing, and the publisher replied: what is needed is not stories, but a novel.After reading Unwin's response, Maugham immediately began to create Lisa of Lambeth. This novel was published in September 1897.

“When I started working on Lisa of Lambeth, I tried to write it the way, in my opinion, Maupassant should have done it,” Maugham later admitted. The book was not born under the influence literary images, but the author’s real impressions. Maugham tried to reproduce with maximum accuracy the life and customs of Lambeth, into whose sinister corners not every policeman dared to look, and where Maugham’s pass and safe-conduct served as the obstetrician’s black suitcase.

The appearance of Maugham's novel was preceded by loud scandal, inspired by T. Hardy's novel Jude the Obscure, published in 1896. The fervor of the critics who accused Hardy of naturalism was thoroughly spent, and Maugham's debut was relatively calm. Moreover, tragic story girls, told with stern truthfulness and without a hint of any sentimentality, was a success among readers. And soon great luck awaited the aspiring 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 be staged, although Maugham published the play in the small magazine “Adventure”. For real successful career Maugham's career as a playwright began with the comedy Lady Frederic, staged in 1903, which was also directed by Court-Tietre in 1907. In the 1908 season, four of Maugham's plays were already performed in London. Bernard Partridge's cartoon appeared in Punch, which depicted Shakespeare languishing with envy in front of posters with the writer's name. Along with entertaining comedies, Maugham also created sharply critical plays in the pre-war years: “The Cream of the Society”, “Smith” and “The Promised Land”, which raised themes of social inequality, hypocrisy and corruption of representatives of the highest echelons of power. Maugham wrote about his profession as a playwright: “I would not go to see my plays at all, either on the opening night or on any other evening, if I did not consider it necessary to test their effect on the public in order to learn from this how to write them.”

Maugham recalled that the reaction to his plays was mixed: “Public newspapers praised the plays for their wit, gaiety and theatricality, but scolded them for their cynicism; more serious critics were merciless towards them. They called them cheap, vulgar, and told me that I had sold my soul to Mammon. And the intelligentsia, which previously counted me among its modest but respected member, not only turned away from me, which would have been bad enough, but cast me into the abyss of hell as the new Lucifer.” On the eve of the First World War, his plays were successfully performed both in London theaters and overseas. But the war changed Maugham's life A. He was drafted into the army, and first served in a medical battalion, and then joined British intelligence. Carrying out her assignments, he spent a year in Switzerland, and then was sent by Intelligence Service employees on a secret mission to Russia. At first, Maugham perceived this kind of activity, like Kipling’s Kim, as participation in “ 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 leaving the war. Meetings with Kerensky deeply disappointed Maugham. The Russian prime minister impressed him as an insignificant and indecisive person. Of all the political figures in Russia with whom I had the opportunity to talk, Maugham singled out only Savinkov as a major and extraordinary personality. 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, he subsequently made fun of his fate as an unsuccessful agent and was grateful to fate for the “Russian adventure.” Maugham wrote about Russia: “Endless conversations where action was required; fluctuations; apathy leading directly to disaster; the pompous declarations, insincerity and lethargy that I observed everywhere - all this alienated me 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 became interested in Russia, I remembered that Cato began to study Greek at the age of eighty, and took up Russian. But by that time my youthful ardor had diminished; I learned to read Chekhov’s plays, but I didn’t go further than that, and what little 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 new inexhaustible material for creativity, and later he acted in several capacities 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 real “stage instinct.” Writing plays came to him with amazing ease. They were full of winning roles, originally constructed, and the dialogue in them was always sharp and witty.

In the post-war period, significant changes occurred in Maugham's dramaturgy. In the comedy The Circle, written by him in 1921, Maugham sharply criticized the immorality of high society. Tragedy " lost generation"was revealed by him in the play "The Unknown". Also, the atmosphere of the “roaring thirties”, the deep economic crisis, the growing threat of fascism and a new world war determined the social sound of his last plays “For Special Merit” and “Sheppie”.

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

Another paradox of Maugham is his personal life. Maugham was bisexual. His service as a special agent brought him to the United States, where the writer met a man for whom he carried his love throughout his entire 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 Nicolet, one of Maugham's friends, testified: “Maugham was not a “pure” homosexual. He, of course, also had love affairs with women; and there was no sign of feminine behavior or feminine mannerisms.” And Maugham himself wrote: “Let those who like me accept me as I am, and let the rest not accept me at all.” Maugham had a lot love affairs With famous women- in particular, with the famous feminist and editor of the magazine "Free Woman" Violet Hunt, and with Sasha Kropotkin - the daughter of the famous Russian anarchist Peter 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 Ethelwyn 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 had recently divorced her husband and was a popular actress. At first he didn’t 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 of the writer's women was Cyrie Barnardo Wellcome, whom Maugham met in 1911. Her father was known for founding a network of shelters for homeless children, and Sairee herself had experience with unsuccessful family life. For some time, Cyrie and Maugham were inseparable, they had a daughter, whom they named Elizabeth, but Cyrie's husband found out about her relationship with Maugham and filed for divorce. Cyrie attempted suicide but survived, and when Cyrie 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 that this was the only thing I could 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 this very well.” Maugham and Cyrie soon began to live separately, and a few years later Cyrie filed for divorce, getting it in 1929. Maugham wrote: “I have loved many women, but I have never known the bliss of mutual love.”

In the mid-thirties, Maugham purchased the Cap-Ferrat villa 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 Herbert Wells visited the writer, and Soviet writers occasionally visited. His work continued to expand with plays, short stories, novels, essays and travel books. By 1940, Somerset Maugham had become one of the most famous and wealthy writers in 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 haunt his imagination, but, at the same time, he does not mind at all if creativity provides him, among other things, with the opportunity to write what he wants and to be his own boss.”

Second World War found Maugham in France. On instructions from the English Ministry of Information, he studied the mood of the French, spent more than a month on the Maginot Line, and visited warships in Toulon. He was confident that France would do its duty and fight to the end. His reports on this formed the book France at War, published in 1940. Three months after its release, France fell, and Maugham, who learned that the Nazis had blacklisted his name, barely reached England on a coal barge, and later left for the United States, where he lived until the end of the war. For most of World War II, Maugham was in Hollywood, where he worked on scripts and made changes to them, and later lived in the South.

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

In 1944, Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge 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 "The Razor's Edge" turned out to be the final one for Maugham in all respects. His idea was hatched for a long time, and the plot was briefly outlined in the story “The Fall of Edward Barnard” back in 1921. When asked how long he wrote this book, Maugham replied: “All his life.” In fact, the novel was the result of his thoughts about the meaning of life.

The post-war decade was also fruitful for the writer. Maugham first turned to the genre historical novel. In the books “Then and Now” and “Catalina,” the past appeared before readers as a lesson for the present. Maugham reflected in them on power and its impact on people, on the policies of rulers and on patriotism. These last novels were written in a new manner for him and were deeply tragic.

After losing Haxton, Maugham resumed his intimate relationship with Alan Searle, a young man from the London slums whom he had met in 1928 while he was working in charitable organization at the hospital. Alan became the writer's new secretary, adored Maugham, who officially adopted him, depriving his daughter Elizabeth of the right to inherit, having learned that she was going to limit his rights to property through the court. Later, Elizabeth, through the court, nevertheless achieved recognition of her right to inheritance, and Maugham's adoption of Searle became invalid.

In 1947, the writer approved the Somerset Maugham Prize, 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 “Changeable Moods”, memories of novelists whom he knew well - about H. James, H. Wells and A. Bennett, as well as the article “The Decline and Destruction of the Detective Story” attracted attention.

Maugham's last book, Points of View, published in 1958, included a long essay on 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, following Wilde, that the purpose of art is to give pleasure, that entertainment is an indispensable and main condition for success. Now he clarified that by entertaining he means not what amuses, but what arouses interest: “The more intellectually entertaining 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 herself said it best about her life: “For my own pleasure, for entertainment and to satisfy what was felt as an organic need, I built my life according to some plan - with a beginning, middle and end, just like those I met there. and these people I built a play, a novel or a story.”

The text was prepared by Tatyana Halina ( halimoshka )

Used materials:

Materials of the site "Wikipedia"

Text of the article “William Somerset Maugham: The Facets of Gifting”, author G. E. Ionkis

Materials from the site www.modernlib.ru

Materials from the site www.bookmix.ru

Prose

• "Liza of Lambeth" (Liza of Lambeth, 1897)
• The Making of a Saint (1898)
• "Orientations" (Orientations, 1899)
• The Hero (1901)
• "Mrs. Craddock" (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)
• “The Burden of Human Passions” (Of Human Bondage, 1915; Russian translation 1959)
• “The Moon and Sixpence” (The Moon and Sixpence, 1919, Russian translation 1927, 1960)
• “The Trembling of a Leaf” (1921)
• “On A Chinese Screen” (1922)
• “The Patterned Veil” / “The Painted Veil” (The Painted Veil, 1925)
• "Casuarina" (The Casuarina Tree, 1926)
• The Letter (Stories of Crime) (1930)
• "Ashenden, or the British Agent" (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" (Don Fernando, 1935)
• "Cosmopolitans" (Cosmopolitans - Very Short Stories, 1936)
• My South Sea Island (1936)
• "Theater" (Theatre, 1937)
• “Summing Up” (The Summing Up, 1938, Russian translation 1957)
• "Christmas Holiday", (Christmas Holiday, 1939)
• “Princess September and The Nightingale” (1939)
• "France at War" (France At War, 1940)
• Books and You (1940)
• "According to the same recipe" (The Mixture As Before, 1940)
• “Up at the Villa” (1941)
• "Very Personal" (Strictly Personal, 1941)
• The Hour Before Dawn (1942)
• The Unconquered (1944)
• "The Razor's Edge" (1944)
• “Then and now. A Novel about Niccolò Machiavelli" (Then and Now, 1946)
• Of Human Bondage - An Address (1946)
• "Toys of Fate" (Creatures of Circumstance, 1947)
• "Catalina" (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)
• "Point of View" (Points of View, 1958)
• Purely For My Pleasure (1962)
• The Force of Circumstance ("Selected Short Stories")
• "Shipwreck" (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"

Maugham. Maugham William Somerset (1874 1965) English writer. Aphorisms, quotes by Maugham William Somerset. Maugham. Biography Life is too short to do for yourself what others can do for you for money. ...

- (Maugham) (1874 1965), English writer. In the autobiographical novel of education “The Burden of Human Passions” (1915) the spiritual formation of the hero, his acquisition of humanistic ideals. Relationship problem creative personality and society... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Maugham William Somerset (25.1.1874, Paris, ≈ 16.12.1965, Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat, France), English writer. Born into the family of a lawyer at the British Embassy in France. Received medical education; practice in a poor quarter of London gave... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Maugham, William Somerset- Maughem William Somerset (1874 1965), English writer. In the confessional novel “The Burden of Human Passions” (1915) the spiritual formation of the hero, his acquisition of humanistic ideals. The problem of the artist’s relationship with society, self-worth... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Maugham, William Somerset) WILLIAM SOMERSET Maugham. Portrait by P. Steegman (1931). (1874 1965), English writer. Born January 25, 1874 in Paris. His father was a co-owner of a law firm there and a legal attaché at the British Embassy... Collier Encyclopedia

MAAWH William Somerset- Maugham William Somerset (18741965), English writer. Plays “A Man of Honor” (1903), “Lady Frederick” (1907), “The Unknown” (1920), “The Circle” (1921), “East of Suez” (1922), “For Faithful Service” (1932), "Sheppie" (1933) and others. Rum. "Lisa … Literary encyclopedic dictionary

Maugham William Somerset (1874 1965) Maugham William Somerset. Maugham. Biography of English writer. Somerset Maugham was born on January 25, 1874 in Paris, in the family of a lawyer at the British Embassy in France. Since childhood, I spoke better in... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

Somerset Maugham Somerset Maugham Birth name: William Somerset Maugham Date of birth: January 25, 1874 Place of birth: Paris, France Date of death: December 16 ... Wikipedia

Somerset Maugham Somerset Maugham Birth name: William Somerset Maugham Date of birth: January 25, 1874 Place of birth: Paris, France Date of death: December 16 ... Wikipedia

Books

• William Somerset Maugham. Collected Works in 5 volumes (set), William Somerset Maugham. The first volume of the Collection of the famous English writer William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) includes the novel “The Burden of Human Passions,” written in 1915, and autobiographical essays...
• Moon and penny. Notebooks, Maugham William Somerset. Somerset Maugham is one of the most widely read English writers, second only to Charles Dickens. “The Moon and a Penny” is a novel of big questions that art has inherited from past centuries: what...