W. Somerset Maugham’s Followers (6,067)

W. Somerset Maugham

Born

in British Embassy, Paris, The United Kingdom

January 25, 1874

Died

December 16, 1965

Genre

Fiction, Short Stories

Influences

Guy de Maupassant, Honoré de Balzac, Anton Chekhov, Ramana Maharshi ...more

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William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.

His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.

Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one ...more

Combine Editions
W. Somerset Maugham’s books

Average rating: 4.06 · 297,913 ratings · 26,581 reviews · 2,118 distinct works • Similar authors

	Of Human Bondage 4.16 avg rating — 61,448 ratings — published 1915 — 1112 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Razor’s Edge 4.20 avg rating — 53,778 ratings — published 1944 — 401 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Painted Veil 3.98 avg rating — 51,602 ratings — published 1925 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Moon and Sixpence 4.12 avg rating — 27,120 ratings — published 1919 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Theatre 4.17 avg rating — 9,639 ratings — published 1937 — 153 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Up at the Villa 3.74 avg rating — 8,474 ratings — published 1941 — 113 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cakes and Ale 3.77 avg rating — 7,931 ratings — published 1930 — 278 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham, Robert Calder (Introduction) 3.58 avg rating — 5,400 ratings — published 1908 — 1259 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ashenden 3.86 avg rating — 4,068 ratings — published 1927 — 235 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Christmas Holiday 3.73 avg rating — 3,218 ratings — published 1939 — 116 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by W. Somerset Maugham…

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Polls

2nd Quarter Long Read Classic-April-June 2015

1936, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, 1037 pages

14 votes, 31.1%

1605, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, 982 pages

8 votes, 17.8%

1981, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, 647 pages

5 votes, 11.1%

1812, The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm, 880 pages

5 votes, 11.1%

1880, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 796 pages

4 votes, 8.9%

1914, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, 684 pages

3 votes, 6.7%

1901, Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann, 731 pages

2 votes, 4.4%

1982, North and South by John Jakes, 812 pages

2 votes, 4.4%

1962, The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, 640 pages

1 vote, 2.2%

1941, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West, 1181 pages

1 vote, 2.2%

45 total votes

1 comment

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