For nearly sixty years Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) was one of the most famous writers in the world. An enormously successful playwright and the author of over a hundred short stories and twenty-one novels — several of which are now established classics
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Reviews
'This steady-eyed biography of an extraordinary, extravagant, generous and bitter artist will not only fascinate its readers but encourage some to go to his work for the first time'
'Hastings' Life of Maugham is pitch-perfect: supple, confident and written with something of the same beady detachment (and enjoyable signature streak of malice) as the great tale-teller himself'
'Hastings provides a searing emotional history...her closing chapter...is so powerfully written, in places so shocking, as to give a series of physical jolts to the reader. Hastings's book cannot be bettered'
'Every so often, a biography appears of such authority and such power that it is more than a chronicle of a human life, it is a work of art...brilliant...such is Selina Hasting's skill that this horrible story is richly enjoyable'
'Engrossing . . . a brilliant evocation'
'The year's best biography by far'
'Selina Hastings has coped manfully with the task of summarising Maugham's huge oeuvre without distracting her readers from his long and eventful life'