W. Somerset Maugham’s Followers (6,073)

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 · 298,116 ratings · 26,612 reviews · 2,118 distinct works • Similar authors

	Of Human Bondage 4.16 avg rating — 61,480 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 — 53,803 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 — 51,634 ratings — published 1925 — 8 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 — 27,137 ratings — published 1919 — 1605 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 — 9,646 ratings — published 1937 — 12 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 — 8,487 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 — 7,936 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 — 5,402 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 — 4,070 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 — 3,226 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…

Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? We've got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day, according to early...

Polls

2015 Fourth Quarter Long Read

1978, The Stand by Stephen King, 1153 pages

27 votes, 18.0%

1853, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville, 663 pages

25 votes, 16.7%

1853, Bleak House by Charles Dickens, 1017 pages

16 votes, 10.7%

1879, The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 796 pages

15 votes, 10.0%

1868, The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 667 pages

13 votes, 8.7%

1847, Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, 867 pages

11 votes, 7.3%

1924, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, 706 pages

10 votes, 6.7%

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

9 votes, 6.0%

1982, North and South by John Jakes, 812 pages

7 votes, 4.7%

1915, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, 684 pages

6 votes, 4.0%

1973, Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, 776 pages

4 votes, 2.7%

1920, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, 1168 pages

3 votes, 2.0%

1794, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, 654 pages

3 votes, 2.0%

1901, Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell, 816 pages

1 vote, 0.7%

1948, The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, 721 pages

0 votes, 0.0%

1876, Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, 796 pages

0 votes, 0.0%

150 total votes

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