Novelist, short-story writer and playwright. The youngest of six brothers, Somerset Maugham was the son of a solicitor to the British Embassy in Paris. He was orphaned at the age of ten and sent to England under the care of his uncle, a clergyman, at Whitstable in Kent. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and Heidelberg where he studied philosophy for a year. He returned to England to study medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital, Lambeth, qualifying in 1897. A small private income allowed him to travel in Europe and he settled in Paris in 1898.
From his experience of London Maugham wrote his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a story of the slums and Cockney life. In Paris he wrote seven novels, a volume of short stories, and a travel book about Andalusia in Spain. Two plays were given a short run in London in 1903-1904, but it was with Lady Frederick (1907) that he achieved success as a playwright. This was followed by a farce, Jack Straw (1908), and a number of other plays which gained him wide popularity; they include The Tenth Man (1910), Our Betters (1917), The Circle (1921), The Letter (1927) and For Services Rendered (1932). After Sheppey (1933) he gave up writing for the theatre.
Maugham's first really successful novel was Of Human Bondage (1915) which charts the life and adventures of a young man in "Blackstable" (Whitstable) and "Tercanbury" (Canterbury) and is based upon personal experience. It was followed by The Moon and Sixpence (1919), set in Tahiti and involving a Gauguinesque artist, Charles Strickland. Other novels were: The Painted Veil (1925), Cakes and Ale (1930), a light-hearted comedy, The Razor's Edge (1945) and Catalina (1948).
Maugham's short stories were published in various collections (beginning with Orientations in 1899, and ending with Creatures of Circumstance in 1947), and include some that have been considered among the best in the language. Many have been made into films and scripted for the stage.
Maugham's extensive travels are the subject of The Land of the Blessed Virgin (1905), On a Chinese Screen (1922), and Don Fernando (1935). His personal views on life and art can be found in The Summing Up (1938), Strictly Personal (1942), A Writer's Notebook (1949) and Points of View (1958). By his own judgement Maugham was one of the leading "second-raters". Critics have praised his narrative skill and his merciless, anti-romantic powers of observation.
Giving Maugham his due for brilliance of style and a pointed ridicule of many social vices, such as snobbishness, money-worship, pretence, self-interest, etc., we realize his cynical attitude to mankind. It is quite obvious that when describing the corruption of modern society, he is not indignant but rather amused. His habitual attitude is that of expecting little or nothing of his fellow men. His ironical cynicism combined with a keen wit and power of observation affords him effective means of portraying English reality without shrinking before its seamy side.
Maugham's style is clear-cut and elegant. The attitude of the novelist to his character seems mostly to be cynically sarcastic. A play upon contrasts and contradictions lies at the basis of Maugham's sarcastic method in portraying his characters. Credit must be given to Maugham for being extremely resourceful in moulding the portrait.
Maugham's irony is bitter. It is rather prominent in the solemn ring of emphatic parallel constructions into which all the flowery expressions are arranged.
A reiteration of the emphatic constructions before homogeneous attributes also sounds mocking enough.
Each paragraph forms a complete unit.
As an illustration of Maugham's skill in using every nuance of the language to serve some special stylistic purpose, we might mention his use of pronouns.