W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham (/ˈmɔːm/ MAWM), CH (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.
After losing both his parents by the age of 10, Maugham was raised by a paternal uncle, who was emotionally cold. Not wanting to become an attorney like other men in his family, Maugham eventually trained and qualified as a doctor. The first run of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full time.
During World War I, he served with the Red Cross and in the ambulance corps, before being recruited in 1916 into the British Secret Intelligence Service, for which he worked in Switzerland and Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. During and after the war, he traveled in India and Southeast Asia; all of these experiences were reflected in later short stories and novels.
Read more about W. Somerset Maugham: Childhood and Education, Marriage and Family, Intelligence Work, Achievements, Significant Works, Influence, Portraits of Maugham, Film Adaptations
Famous quotes containing the words somerset maugham, somerset and/or maugham:
“Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)
“There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)