Posts
Lady Frederick by W. Somerset Maugham - First Edition
Lady Frederick (London: Heinemann, 1912)This post is about W. Somerset Maugham’s first successful play, Lady Frederick, which brought him the popularity and financial success that he had been working hard for for over ten years.
Lady Frederick - Turning Point for Maugham
Lady Frederick is the watershed of Maugham’s career as a writer. He had been struggling for upwards of ten years, writing from one subject to another, from novel to drama to travelogue to short stories, trying to find a niche…
W. Somerset Maugham - 140th Birthday (25 January 1874 - 2014)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAUGHAM!Dear fellow Maugham admirers,
This post is to celebrate the 140th anniversary of W. Somerset Maugham’s birthday. Regretfully, he is not here with us. As a line from Musset’s Rolla that Maugham appeared to love says: "Je suis venu trop tard dans un monde trop vieux.”
For this special occasion (we humans have a penchant for round numbers), I have prepared a video. I love birthdays, a rare personal event in this overpopulated world.
There are only three authors whos…
The Unattainable by W. Somerset Maugham - First Edition
The Unattainable. A Farce in Three Acts (London: Heinemann, 1923)This post is about one of W. Somerset Maugham’s plays, “The Unattainable.” As usual, we will first look at some history of the play, its content, and then the first edition.
The Unattainable/Caroline
According to Stott, this play was written much earlier than its publication, in the year 1915, when Maugham was involved in his spying activities in Switzerland:
He[Maugham] had written the whole play up to a great comic scene in th…
The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham - First Edition
The Magician (London: Heinemann, 1908)This post will describe the first edition of W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Magician, published in 1908, about a very unusual Maugham subject: the supernatural–a book which has won him many controversies concerning Aleister Crowley, the "wickedest man in the world."
The Magician - First Edition
I am very pleased to say that finally I have in my possession the genuine first edition of The Magician. I have discussed in an earlier post of a copy…
W. Somerset Maugham. A Study of the Short Fiction -- Review
Archer, Stanley. W. Somerset Maugham. A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993.This post will look at a book of literary criticism of W. Somerset Maugham’s short stories. It is an interesting study, and upon finishing it, the reader would have wished for more.
W. Somerset Maugham’s Short Stories
This book contains three parts; only the first part consists of Archer’s analysis and criticism of Maugham’s short fictions.
The introduction is well-written, with Maugham’s lif…