Cakes and Ale

Fülszöveg

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874, and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He afterwards walked the wards of St Thomas's Hospitál with a view to practice in medicine, but the success of two first novels, Liza of Lambeth (1897) and Mrs Craddock (1902), won him over to letters. Something of his hospitál experience is reflected, however, in the first of his masterpieces, Of Humán Bondage (1915), and with The Moon and Sixpence (1919) his reputation as a novelist was assured. His position as one of the most successful playwrights on the London stage was being Consolidated simultaneously. His first play was A Man of Honour (1903). This was followed by a veritable procession of successes, including Lady Frederick (1907), Smith (1909), The Land of Pro mise (1914), The Circle (1921), etc. Indeed, at one point only Bemard Shaw had more plays running at the same time in London. He declared his theatre career closed after For Services Rendered (1932). His fame in the realm of short stories, begun with The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), continues with increasing momentum. More than a quarter of a millión copies of the three volumes of his Complete Short Stories have already been sold. His generál books are fewer in number. There are the charming books of travel, Gentlemen in the Parlour (1930) and Don Fernando (1935), and the self-revealing The Summing Up (1938) and A Writer's Notebook (1949), reprinted together in The Partial View (1954). Mr Maugham is now back at his villa on the Riviéra, from which he temporarily retired in 1940. Vissza