Plays Volume One

Maugham has given infinite pleasure and left us a splendour of writing which will remain for as long as the written English word is permitted to exist * Daily Telegraph *
A formidable talent, a formidable sum of talents…precision, tact, irony and total absence of pomposity * Spectator *
Gripping and entertaining * The Daily Telegraph on ‘The Letter’ *
A shrewd, still-relevant examination of women’s roles, the nature of love and the manners and mores of marriage * Variety on ‘The Constant Wife’ *

William Somerset Maugham was a renowned novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, born in 1874. He lived in Paris until the age of ten and was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and Heidelberg University.

Initially intending to practice medicine, Maugham studied at St. Thomas’ Hospital. However, the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), led him to pursue a literary career. His first masterpiece, Of Human Bondage, was published in 1915, and his reputation as a novelist was solidified with the 1919 publication of The Moon and Sixpence.

Simultaneously, Maugham established himself as a successful playwright. Following his first play, A Man of Honour, he enjoyed a series of theatrical successes before and after World War I. His playwriting career concluded in 1933 with Sheppey.

Maugham’s fame as a short-story writer began in 1921 with The Trembling of a Leaf, subtitled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands. He went on to publish over ten collections of short stories. His extensive body of work also includes travel books like On a Chinese Screen and Don Fernando, as well as essays, criticism, and autobiographical works such as The Summing Up and A Writer’s Notebook.

In 1927, Maugham settled in the south of France, where he resided until his death in 1965.

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