Moon and Sixpence

About W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English novelist playwright and short story writer. Born in Paris he was orphaned as a boy and sent to live with an emotionally distant uncle. He struggled to fit in as a student at The Kings School in Canterbury and demanded his uncle send him to Heidelberg University where he studied philosophy and literature. In Germany he had his first affair with an older man and embarked on a career as a professional writer. After completing his degree Maugham moved to London to begin medical school. There he published Liza of Lambeth (1897) his debut novel. Emboldened by its popular and critical success he dropped his pursuit of medicine to devote himself entirely to literature. Over his 65-year career he experimented in form and genre with such works as Lady Frederick (1907) a play The Magician (1908) an occult novel and Of Human Bondage (1915). The latter an autobiographical novel earned Maugham a reputation as one of the twentieth centurys leading authors and continues to be recognized as his masterpiece. Although married to Syrie Wellcome Maugham considered himself both bisexual and homosexual at different points in his life. During and after the First World War he worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service as a spy in Switzerland and Russia writing of his experiences in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1927) a novel that would inspire Ian Flemings James Bond series. At one point the highest-paid author in the world Maugham led a remarkably eventful life without sacrificing his literary talent.