The Collected Plays: Volume 1 - W Somerset Maugham Lady Frederick; Mrs., Dot; Jack Straw; Penelope; Smith; The Land of Promise

William Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965) was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was one of the most popular authors of his era, and reputedly the highest paid of his profession during the 1930s.

By 1914, Maugham was famous, with ten plays produced and ten novels published. Too old to enlist when World War I broke out, Maugham served in France as a member of the British Red Cross's so-called "Literary Ambulance Drivers", a group of some 23 well-known writers including Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos and E. E. Cummings.

In June, 1917 he was asked by Sir William Wiseman, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (later named MI6), to undertake a special mission in Russia to keep the Provisional Government in power and Russia in the war by countering German pacifist propaganda.

Two and a half months later the Bolsheviks took control. The job was probably always impossible, but Maugham subsequently claimed that if he had been able to get there six months earlier, he might have succeeded.

Maugham's masterpiece is generally agreed to be Of Human Bondage, a semi-autobiographical novel. The Moon and Sixpence fictionalizes the life of Paul Gauguin; and Cakes and Ale contains thinly veiled characterizations of authors Thomas Hardy and Hugh Walpole. Maugham's last major novel, The Razor's Edge, published in 1944, takes place in Europe,The main characters are American, not British. The protagonist is a disillusioned veteran of World War I who abandons his wealthy friends and lifestyle, traveling to India seeking enlightenment.

Among his short stories, some of the most memorable include Rain, Footprints in the Jungle, and The Outstation. Rain, in particular, which charts the moral disintegration of a missionary attempting to convert the Pacific island prostitute Sadie Thompson, has kept its fame and been made into a movie several times.

In 1947, Maugham instituted the Somerset Maugham Award, awarded to the best British writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a work of fiction published in the past year. Notable winners include V. S. Naipaul, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis and Thom Gunn.

On his death, Maugham donated his copyrights to the Royal Literary Fund.

Source - Wikipedia