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- W. Somerset Maugham
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- Born in France, William Somerset Maugham was the son of a British embassy
official. After attending Heidelberg University, his family asked him to
go off and study medicine at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. But Maugham
never practiced. Instead, he spent his life as a writer. His works include
The Moon & Sixpence, Cakes & Ale, Christmas Holidays,
Catalina and The Razor's Edge.
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- Author Bryan Connon has written a book called Somerset
Maugham & The Maugham Dynasty. His publisher summarizes Maugham's
sexual history: "Throughout his brilliant career Willie led a double
life: his marriage to Syrie was a sham and he spent much of it abroad with
his American lover, Gerald Haxton, who had been barred from the U.K. as
a security risk. In 1927 he finally left England to live on Cap Ferrat
in the Villa Mauresque, dubbed by Noel Coward 'the other Vatican.' Here
he played pontiff end received the famous and the infamous, everyone from
royals to rent boys.
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- "In his final years, senile and manipulated by Alan Searle, his
elderly and avaricious secretary-lover, he attempted to disown his daughter
and adopt Searle as his son. The mockery that greeted this was kept from
him, as was the anger and tension caused by his memoirs, in which he attacked
his dead wife and claimed to be a red-blooded heterosexual."
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- Maugham had a severe stutter throughout his life. In his autobiographical
Of Human Bondage, he disguised his disability by giving the main
charcatre a club foot instead.
- Caxton Club
of Chicago
- Passing
Twice Index