Who Was William Somerset Maugham?


William Somerset Maugham (1874-) was born in Paris. At the age of ten he came to England, and he was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and Heidelberg University, and worked as a doctor at St Thomas’s Hospital, London. He began his literary career as a novelist and then turned to the drama, from which he made enough money to allow him to devote himself entirely to literature. During the 1914-18 War he served first with the Red Cross and then in the Intelligences Service. He has travelled widely in Europe and the Far East, and at the outbreak of the Second World Was was living in France. The story of his life there and eventual escape to England is told in “Strictly Personal” (1942).

Maugham’s novels reveal him as a cynical cosmopolitan presenting life in an ironically detached manner which does not flinch in the face of the mean or sordid. A realist, with an intense interest in human nature, keenly aware of the contradictions and frustrations of life, he is a poised, finished artist, who writes in a prose that is clear, precise, and simple. His sardonic humour and mordant wit are two of his most striking qualities. His experience in London hospitals provided him with the knowledge of London’s poorer quarters, in which are set such early works as “Liza of Lambeth” (1897) and “Mrs. Craddock” (1902). From his travels he drew the background of “The Moon and Sixpence” (1919), “The Painted Veil” (1925), “The Casuarina Tree” (1926), and the unusual fantasy “Catalina” (1948). His best novel is undoubtedly “Of Human Bondage” (1915), a study in frustration, which has a strong autobiographical element. Among his other fiction, mention should be made of the novels “Cakes and Ale” (1930) and “The Razor’s Edge” (1944), and of his short stories in “The Trembling of a Leaf”(1921), “On a Chinese Screen” (1922), “Ashenden” (1928), and “Altogether” (1934).

Between 1904 and 1933, when he finally abandoned the stage, Maugham wrote some thirty plays, often at the rate of two or three a year. Though, by 1914, he had written more than ten plays, from which he had gained considerable wealth, his most memorable, though not his most profitable, work belonged to the inter-War period. After the realistic tragedy of “A Man of Honour” (1903) he made his name and fortune with gay, light-hearted comedies, full of wit and epigram. Among them were “Lady Frederick” (1907), “Mrs. Dot” (1908), and “Jack Straw” (1908). The last of these purely commercial plays was “Home and Beauty” (1919). Two years later appeared “The Circle” (1921), a true comedy of manners and his best play. “Our Betters”, which, though produced in New York in 1917, was not seen in England until 1923, and “The Constant Wife” (1927) are in the same tradition. Maugham’s temperament is ideal for comedy of this kind. A shrewd observer of life and a keen student of human nature, he is a highly intelligent man of the world, cherishing few illusions, and rarely admitting any trace of sentimentality into his drama. His best plays are the ironical comment of a cynically humorous observer, aiming to present life as it really is. In many ways he reminds us of the Restoration dramatists. With the broadening of his themes goes the maturing of his dialogue, which gradually shakes off its early tinsel brilliance for a pithy, economical style, to which his verbal skill gives a consummate ease. His plays are expertly constructed; his early successes depended largely on the theatrical quality of his work.

Maugham is an uneven dramatist, whose work shows considerable diversity of tone and mood. He offered realistic tragedy in “A Man of Honour” and the much better “For Services Rendered” (1932); the glitter of the early comedies; the true comedy of manners; and occasionally the stronger passions of such plays as “The Letter” (1927). Other plays worthy of mention are “Penelope” (1908), “Ceasar’s Wife” (1919), “East of Suez”(1922), and “Sheppey” (1933).