Maugham's Comments
Nearly fifty years after the publication of The Magician, the author, Maugham, commented on his book in A Fragment of Autobiography. He writes that by then he had almost completely forgotten the book, and, on rereading it, found the writing "lush and turgid", using more adverbs and adjectives than he would today, and notes that he must have been trying to emulate the "écriture artiste" (artistic writing) of the French writers of the time. The plot bears some resemblance to George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby. Maugham also comments that he must have spent days and days reading in the library of the British Museum to come by all the material on the black arts.
Read more about this topic: The Magician (Maugham novel)
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