Preview

William Somerset Maugham

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
739 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
William Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham was a British 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 a lawyer 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 the First World War, 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.
Maugham's father, Robert Ormond Maugham, was a lawyer who handled the legal affairs of the British embassy in Paris.[2] Since French law declared that all children born on French soil could be conscripted for military service, his father arranged for Maugham to be born at the embassy, technically on British soil.[3] His grandfather, another Robert, had also been a prominent lawyer and co-founder of the English Law Society.It was taken for granted that Maugham and his brothers would follow in their footsteps. His elder brother Viscount Maugham enjoyed a distinguished legal career and served as Lord Chancellor from 1938 to 1939.
Maugham's mother, Edith Mary (née Snell), had tuberculosis (TB), a condition for which her doctor prescribed childbirth. She had Maugham several years after the last of his three older brothers; they were already enrolled in boarding school by the time he was three. Being the youngest, he was effectively raised as an only child.
Edith's sixth and final son died on 25 January 1882, one day after his birth, on Maugham's

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Oscar winning British actor Michael Caine was born in 1933 at Bermondsey in London. His real name was Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. The family expected Maurice to follow in his father's footsteps, but he had other plans. He had early, if non-professional experiences with acting. At the age of 3 years on a regular basis he would have to convince the rent collector that "Mummy's out", while she hid behind the front door coaxing him.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hardly more than a week after having Mary, Wollstonecraft died, leaving William to raise Mary and her half-sister, Fanny, whom William chose to adopt.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the story “The Birthmark”. So many people have just read the story and not really paid much attention, but if you really read it there are so many underlying messages and symbols. Hawthorne did one thing stuck out and it was he used the three main characters in the story to represent the three characteristics or traits of mankind which are spiritual, natural, and mental.…

    • 463 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    His father didn’t approve of him wanting to be an author and made him leave after his 1st year and become a shoe maker…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edmund was one of the two children of Peter and Martha Eyre Booth. The same sickness(meningitis) killed his father. And he had a older brother named Henry. And he also married Mary ann Walworth who was also deaf. Later on they had 4 children Thomas,Harriet,Harriet emma,and Frank.…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mark Twain

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the biography Mark Twain: The Divided Mind of America's Best-Loved Writer by David W. Levy it was made clear that Mark Twain was very involved with all the society changes in his time period. Many of his novels have a theme circulating around the different changes and problems in society including slavery and racism. Mark Twain has been through the years preceding the Civil War, the Gilded Age and industrialization, this book explores his attitude and actions during the time period. This book is very good with explaining and going into detail about what happened in Mark Twain’s life in the 18th and 19th century.…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the early nineteenth century during the Romanticism period, Nathaniel Hawthorne became famous for his novels and short stories that mirrored the dark image of the world. His works became a huge contribution to the modern world of American Literature and now have been given its proper recognition for more than a century.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mark Twain

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The humor of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is enhanced by all of the following except:…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    William Shakespeare is a famous author of many popular plays. Shakespeare plays are still famous today, and studied in schools and drama clubs everywhere. The most famous play written by William Shakespeare is Romeo and Juliet.…

    • 621 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    His mother’s death by tuberculosis, would be a common source of death of the loved ones later in his life.…

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    poems, essays and short stories. He left Albany for a teaching job in Massachusetts, but soon…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    He enlisted in the army and fought as a soldier and wrote as a journalist. He had a particularly unique experience in the Boer War, in which “Churchill and the other survivors were taken to a prison camp in Pretoria, the capital of Transvaal” (Schlesinger 37). To be more specific, as Churchill arrived on the African front, he was not actually in the midst of the fighting, and being as eager as he had shown to be in the past, decided to go to the fighting. Luckily, “Churchill soon had an opportunity to observe Boer capabilities for himself…The captain, who had just been given order to prepare his men for the mission, saw Churchill and invited him along” (36). Unfortunately, soon after embarking Churchill and his unit were under fire and captured. It was in this moment that we can truly see Churchill’s unyielding tenacity. Despite all odds, Churchill tried his hardest in order to be freed from his captors. He tried to use his status as a journalist, but as no one seemed to care, an escape plan was thought up. With that, “Despite the risk, Churchill could wait no longer” and escaped (38). Although the escape was not simple, the effects of it played a key role in Churchill’s life. Since he had already decided that the only way to become a politician for him was to earn glory, the war effort paid off since he was “Greeted as a hero” and “His name was in all the headlines, and is bravery was widely…

    • 1258 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    An Inspector Calls LitChart

    • 13407 Words
    • 61 Pages

    a junior clerk at a wool firm. He served and was injured in World War I and…

    • 13407 Words
    • 61 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    NAXOS jane eyre – a study guide by francis gilbert Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley YOUNG Frankenstein ~ OR ~ A D U LT The Modern Prometheus CLASSICS A S T U D Y G U I D E by Francis Gilbert page 1 Contents introduction ............................................... 5 contexts ....................................................... 7 Understanding Contexts ...................................................…

    • 16821 Words
    • 68 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    John Keats

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Keats was born in London, October 31, 1795,and was the eldest of four children. His father was a livery-stable owner, however he was killed in a riding accident when Keats was only nine and his mother died six years later of tuberculosis. Keats was educated at the Clarke School, in Enfield, and at the age of 15 was apprenticed to a surgeon. Subsequently, from 1814 to 1816, Keats studied medicine in London hospitals; in 1816 he became a licensed apothecary (druggist) but never practiced his profession, deciding instead to be a poet.…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays