W. Somerset Maugham died in 1965 at age 90, and it's taken half a century for one of the most famous and successful writers of the modern era to receive a fully balanced biography.

In 1962, William Somerset Maugham’s nephew, Robin, his own literary efforts having not amounted to much, informed his wealthy and famous uncle that an American publisher, Victor Weybright, had ...

The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham. A Biography. Selina Hastings. Random House: 640 pp., $35. The story of William Somerset Maugham, the stammering young boy who became a doctor and then the ...

“The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham: A Biography” By Selina Hastings Random House, Inc., 640 pages, $35 In 1953 Sir Gerald Kelly, the President of the Royal Academy, organized a dinner in ...

Somerset Maugham begins his novel Cakes and Ale with one of the more suave, and lethal, openings in modern lit: “I have noticed that when someone asks for you on the telephone and, finding you ...

The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham by Selina Hastings Random House, 640 pp., $35 Once upon a time a serious novelist could be very, very popular. Then something came unstuck, and now the ...

Made For 4 Extra. This year sees the 50th anniversary of the death of William Somerset Maugham: one of the most commercially successful English writers ever. His plays, short stories and novels ...

Poor Somerset Maugham: Not only did he not get his due from critics in his lifetime, but he also hasn't attracted the right biographer in the nearly four decades since his death. Of course, it's ...