William Somerset Maugham - Biography, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Filmography (Read)

William Somerset Maugham - biography, date of birth, place of birth, filmography, clips, Writer, Actor.
January 25, 1874 Paris - December 16, 1965 Nice - screenwriter and actor
As a child, Maugham spoke only French, learned English only after he was orphaned at the age of 10 (his mother died of consumption in February 1882, his father died of stomach cancer in June 1884) and was sent to relatives in the English town of Whitstable in the county Kent, six miles from Canterbury. Upon arrival in England, Maugham began to stutter - this has remained for life. “I was small in stature; hardy, but not strong physically; I stuttered, was shy and in poor health. I didn’t have a penchant for sports, which is so important in English life; and - whether for one of these reasons, or from birth - I instinctively avoided people, which prevented me from getting along with them. ”
Being raised by Henry Maugham, the vicar at Whitstable, he began his studies at the Royal School in Canterbury. Then he studied literature and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg - in Heidelberg, Maugham wrote his first work - a biography of the composer Meyerbeer (when it was rejected by the publisher, Maugham burned the manuscript). Then he entered medical school (1892) at the hospital of St. Thomas in London - this experience is reflected in Maugham's first novel, Lisa of Lambeth (1897). Maugham's first literary success came with the play Lady Frederick (1907) .
During the First World War, he collaborated with MI5, as an agent of British intelligence he was sent to Russia in order to prevent her from leaving the war. I arrived there by steamer from the USA, to Vladivostok. He was in Petrograd from August to November 1917, and met several times with Alexander Kerensky, Boris Savinkov and other political figures. Left Russia due to the failure of his mission (October Revolution) through Sweden. The work of the scout was reflected in the collection of 14 short stories "Ashenden, or British Agent" (1928, Russian translations - 1929 and 1992) .
After the war, Maugham continued his successful career as a playwright, writing the plays "Circle" (1921), "Sheppie" (1933). Maugham's novels - "The Burden of Human Passions" (1915; Russian translations 1959) - an almost autobiographical novel, "The Moon and a Penny" (1919, Russian translations 1927, 1960), "Pies and Beer" (1930), "Theater" (1937), Razor's Edge (1944) .
In July 1919, in pursuit of new impressions, Maugham went to China and later to Malaysia, which gave him material for two collections of stories. The villa in Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera was bought by Maugham in 1928 and became one of the great literary and social salons and the writer's home for the rest of his life. Winston Churchill and H.G. Wells sometimes visited the writer, and occasionally Soviet writers were also here. His work continued to be replenished with plays, stories, novels, essays and travel books. By 1940, Somerset Maugham had become one of the most famous and wealthy writers of English fiction. Maugham did not hide the fact that he writes “not for the sake of money, but in order to get rid of the ideas, characters, types that are pursuing his imagination, but, at the same time, does not object at all if creativity provides him, among other things, with the opportunity to write what he wants and be his own boss. ”
In 1944, Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge was published. For most of World War II, Maugham, who was already in his sixties, was in the United States - first in Hollywood, where he worked a lot on scripts, making amendments to them, and later in the South. In 1947, the writer approved the Somerset Maugham Award, which was awarded to the best English writers under the age of thirty-five. Maugham gave up travel when he felt they had nothing more to give him. “I had nowhere to change further. The arrogance of culture flew away from me. I accepted the world as it is. I learned to be tolerant. I wanted freedom for myself and was ready to give it to others. " After 1948, Maugham left drama and fiction, writing essays, mainly on literary themes. The last lifetime publication of Maugham's work, the autobiographical notes "A Look at the Past", was published in the fall of 1962 on the pages of the London "Sunday Express".

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Author: Jane Watson