My Maugham Collection

The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham and References to Paintings

In another post, I talked about the use of art reference as a narrative technique in W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Merry-Go-Round (1904), he did the same in The Magician (1908), which undoubtedly leads Aleister Crowley to include art alongside magic as the subject of the novel (albeit in a sarcastic manner) [1]. I find it extremely interesting to put the paintings beside the passages, and in this post you will see the description or invocation of art in Maugham's novel The Magician.

I…

Liza of Lambeth - First Edition by W. Somerset Maugham

Liza of Lambeth (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1897)

Liza of Lambeth (1897) is Maugham's first novel; he wrote it when he was still in the medical school at St. Thomas's. When it was accepted and published, Maugham made up his mind to ditch medicine and launched himself into the writing career. Liza of Lambeth is currently out of copyright, and you can find a link to a free digitalised copy of this novel, among others, by Somerset Maugham on the Free eBook page on this blog. This post is abou…

The Spoken Word: British Writers

The Spoken Word: British Writers, 3-CD Set (British Library - British Library Sound Archive): Historic Recordings by Original Authors
This is a review of another of the British Library and the BBC historic recordings of authors reading their own short stories. You will find detailed information of Maugham's reading his work and the content of this three CD sets.


Maugham's Reading A Writer's Notebook
Another recordings of writers reading their own works by the British Library and the…

Short Stories. English and Irish Authors Read Their Own Work (The Spoken Word)

Short Stories: English & Irish Authors Read Their Own Work (The Spoken Word) This is a review of this three CD set The Spoken Word. Short Stories: English and Irish Authors Read Their Own Work, which contains tracks of Maugham reading his own short stories: "Salvatore" and "The Luncheon." You will also find details of the content in this collection of historic recordings.

Maugham's Short Stories
This is the first volume of the audio recording that I reviewed some tim…

The Magician - W. Somerset Maugham

The Magician (New York: George H. Doran, 1908[1921])
Besides being a very good read that this post will discuss in more details, I will also talk about the acquisition process of this edition, which is listed very often as 1908 first edition. If you are interested in book publication history, this novel by Maugham, The Magician, presents an interesting case.


Comments on W. Somerset Maugham's The Magician
I went through the book as fast as the first time. It is true, as Aleister Crowley (who…

The Merry-Go-Round by W. Somerset Maugham and References to Paintings

When I was reading The Merry-Go-Round (1904) I noticed that Maugham often referred to paintings in order to describe his characters. I thought it would be interesting to put them side by side with the passages, so may be we could visualize what Maugham had in mind when he made these art references in his novel.

Art References and The Merry-Go-Round
Well, this is not exactly a painting... "Mrs. Castillyon was a vivacious creature, small and dainty like a shepherdess in Dresden china, excita…

The Merry-Go-Round by W. Somerset Maugham

The Merry-Go-Round (London: Heinemann, 1904)
This post will discuss The Merry-Go-Round, which is one of Maugham's early novels, and describe the first edition.

The Merry-Go-Round by W. Somerset Maugham
This is the last novel by Maugham that I read; by finishing it I have read all his novels. Before reading it, I put it in the category of The Making of a Saint (1898), Up At the Villa (1941), The Hour Before the Dawn (1942), Then and Now (1946), and Catalina (1948), from the impression that I …

Chronicles of Barabbas 1884-1934 by George H. Doran

Doran, George H. Chronicles of Barabbas 1884-1934. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935.
Chronicles of Barabbas is a memoir by George H. Doran, Maugham's American publisher since Of Human Bondage (1915), up to 1927 when the company merged with Doubleday and became Doubleday, Doran and Company. This post will review Doran's comments on Maugham on a personal level (such as how he played golf...) and as a professional writer.

Doran explains why he names his book so:
The legend runs t…

Maugham the Art Collector

Mander, Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson. The Artist and the Theatre. The Story of the Paintings Collected and Presented to the National Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham. London: Heinemann, 1955.
This post is about a catalogue of one of Maugham's art collections: the theatrical pictures that he donated to the National Theatre. This impressive art collection seemed to have finally found their home, though unfortunately, not as Maugham would have wished, the collection was dispersed, albeit all in B…

Maugham's Of Human Bondage and the Anatomy of Desire

Lane, Christopher. "Maugham's Of Human Bondage and the Anatomy of Desire." The Ruling Passion: British Colonial Allegory and The Paradox of Homosexual Desire. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. 126-144.
This post will review a chapter from the book of criticism, The Ruling Passion: British Colonial Allegory and the Paradox of Homosexual Desire, on one of W. Somerset Maugham's novels, Of Human Bondage (1915). The review will dwell on some details, examining the arguments pose…

Somerset Maugham

Spencer, Theodore. "Somerset Maugham." College English 2 (1940): 1-10. 
This post is one of a series in which I review the critical analysis on W. Somerset Maugham's work. This is an old article published during Maugham's lifetime, assessing his achievement up to then. In this article Theodore Spencer examines Maugham's books as a whole up to 1940, and comments on Cakes and Ale (1930) and Of Human Bondage (1915).

"Somerset Maugham"
Spencer ventures to explain the…

The Moon and Sixpence Illustrated by Frederic Dorr Steele and Paul Gauguin - W. Somerset Maugham

Illustrated by Frederic Dorr Steele and Paul Gauguin By W. Somerset Maugham The Moon and Sixpence (New York: The Heritage Press, 1941)

I just got hold of this beautiful illustrated edition of The Moon and Sixpence. In the catalogue online when I bought it it was dated as 1919, which is not accurate, since it is published in 1941. At first I thought that it could be an earlier edition than the one mentioned in Stott.

Besides the main text, at the beginning a series of correspondence is included as…

La Closerie des Lilas & Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham's Reference to La Closerie des Lilas in Of Human Bondage
In this post I will look at several restaurants mentioned in one of W. Somerset Maugham's novels, Of Human Bondage, that Philip Carey frequented when he was studying arts in Paris, such as Gravier's, Le Versailles, and La Closerie des Lilas.

Recently I have taken on the task of rereading Of Human Bondage (1915). After finishing a stressful and boring month, full of mundane and dull duties and daily contact wi…