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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 spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965
One of the most interesting and least patronising accounts of cockney life in the late 19th century The Times A picture of such squalor and deprivation that it caused an uproar and made Maugham famous Sunday Times He evolved a quality possessed only by master story-tellers - that of making the reader greedy for more Economist He shrewdly spun the raw material of human suffering into a brutal tale. Maugham pushed the limits of acceptability and gained a following for it Washington Times
