The Magician [antikvár]

penguin books THE MAGICIAN William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at the King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He afterwards walked the wards of St Thomas's Hospitál with a view to practice in medicine, but the success of his first növel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), won him over to letters. Something of his hospitál experience is reflected, however, in the first of his masterpieces, Of Humán Bondage (1915), and with The Moon and Sixpence (1919) his reputation as a novelist was assured. His position as one of the most successful playwrights on the London stage was being Consolidated simultaneously. His first play, A Man of Honour (1903), was followed by a pro-cession of successes just before and after the First World War. (At one point only Bemard Shaw had more plays running at the same time in London.) His theatre career ended with Sheppey (1933). His fame as a short-story writer began with The Trembling of a Leaf, sub-titled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, in 1921, since when he published more than ten collections. Somerset Maugham's generál books are fewer in number. They include travel books, such as On a Chinese Screen (1922) and Don Fernando (1935), essays, criticism, and the self-revealing The Summing Up (1938) and A Writer's Notebook (1949). Mr Maugham lived on the Riviéra, from which he retired temporarily during the war. During his life he travelled in almost every part of the world. He became a Companion of Honour in 1954, and died in 1965.