WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM

 





Educated at King's School, Canterbury, and Heidelberg University in Germany, Maugham then studied six years medicine in London. He qualified in 1897 as a doctor from St. Thomas' medical school.

 



He abandoned medicine after the success of his first novels and plays but he studied the craft of writing as assiduously as he had medicine, often writing out passages of other novelists. He never owned a typewriter but wrote everything by hand. He eventually developed a habit of writing four hours each morning.

 














Maugham then lived in Paris for ten years as a struggling young author. In 1897 his first novel, LIZA OF LAMBERT appeared. His first play, A MAN OF HONOUR was produced in 1903. Four of his plays ran simultaneously in London in 1904. 

 


Maugham's breakthrough novel was the semi-autobiographical OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1915), which is usually considered his outstanding achievement. It made him the most popular author of his time. During World War I he was a volunteer ambulance driver, one of the so called Literary Ambulance Drivers of the day. In 1928 he purchased Mauresque (a word meaning 'of Moorish style'), a villa on the Riviera in the south of France overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. In the early part of 1938 Maugham Travels in India, meeting Sri Ramana Maharshi, who he later used as a model for the holy man in his novel The Razor's Edge. As the the Nazi military juggernaut thrust across the border into France, Maugham, like thousands of others, was forced to become a refugee, albeit, a fairly well off refugee. Under the auspices of his American publisher Nelson Doubleday, he settled in the United States for the duration of the war, first in South Carolina then in Hollywood, California. With the end of hostilities he returned to Mauresque and it remained his home till the end of his days.

 


W. Somerset Maugham lived to be 91 years of age. He passed away December 16th, 1965. He had lived in Victorian England, turn of the century America, Europe between the wars, and seen the invention of movies, radio, and television --- briefly summing it all up somewhat with his own words in Looking Back. All the while he traveled the world, rubbed shoulders with the richest and the most famous people of the day, put together a private art colletion of Impressionist paintings that was the envy of all who saw it, and observed the human condition in all its myriad forms.

WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM: BIOGRAPHIES

BESTSELLING NOVELS OF THE 20th CENTURY: The Razor's Edge

ZEN ENLIGHTENMENT IN A NUTSHELL

CLICK
HERE FOR
ENLIGHTENMENT

ON THE RAZOR'S
EDGE

WITH THANKS TO:
RICK BATEMAN
THE W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM CENTER

RICK BATEMAN

Rick Bateman was born in Montreal, Quebec on December 28th, 1953. For you Myers-Briggs types, he is an INTJ; a Capricorn for you astrologers.

In his own words, here a list of things he is interested in and keeps his eye on:

"I enjoy reading about psychology, sociology, and anthropology. These days, given my responsibilities as a senior manager, I am involved in the study and practice of leadership, business organization and communications.

I break it up with fiction when my brain gets full. The fiction I read is mostly 'turn of the century' literature: Somerset Maugham, Edith Wharton, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, etc. For romance and adventure, the late Victorian Era is just my cup of tea.

I am also a big fan of anything about the Roman Empire, particularly Roman Briton. Either that or "hard" science fiction of the Clark/Asimov variety (or their inheritors: Brin, Bova, and Benford). My current science interest is astrobiology because I believe we are only a part of the real intelligent life form of the universe - DNA. I like mythology because I think it is the way we dimly perceive this vast entity.

I am a person of faith. I have studied the history, philosophy, and psychology of faith for many years and believe faith to be a very real requirement for mental and physical health. My studies focus primarily on the works of Ken Wilber and my practice follows the teachings of the Dalai Lama."

A teacher, performer, author and practicing Buddhist, Rick lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

FROM THE ORIGINAL MAUGHAM PAGE
WITH THANKS TO:
RICK BATEMAN
THE W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM CENTER
(NO LONGER ACTIVE)

THE BEST OF THE MAUGHAM BIOGRAPHIES:

• W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM: A BIOGRAPHY
  

• MAUGHAM
  

• MAUGHAM IN INDIA
  

• LITERARY AMBULANCE DRIVERS
  Everybody knows Hemingway drove an ambulance during WWI, nobody knows Maugham did.
  

• THE ART COLLECTION OF W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
  

SPIRITUAL GUIDES, GURUS, AND TEACHERS INFLUENTIAL IN THE RAZOR'S EDGE:

• BHAGAVAN SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI

• SWAMI RAMDAS

• YASUTANI HAKUUN ROSHI

• FATHER ENSHEIM
  Includes a section on the missing years of the Razor's Edge

• KOSTI