The Magician

by Somerset Maugham

Overview

Somerset Maugham was a British novelist, short story writer and playwright. He was born in 1874 in Paris. During the 1930Zs his popularity soared and he became the highest paid author of his era. MaughamZs father was a British lawyer working for the embassy in Paris. In France anyone born on French soil must serve in the army. To avoid this Maugham was born at the embassy, which was technically on British soil. After five years in medical school Maugham began a successful writing career. While Maugham worked in midwifery training in a London slum during medical school he learned about the working classes. In The Magician the sinister and repulsive Oliver Haddo gradually brings a happily engaged young English girl under his hypnotic spell, a spell from which the efforts of her fianc and friends cannot save her. In the 1908 edition of the magazine Vanity Fair Aleister Crowley wrote a critique of The Magician, accusing Maugham of plagiarism. Crowley accuses Maugham of having plagiarized several books in writing The Magician.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781438513676
Publisher:	Book Jungle
Publication date:	03/14/2009
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.42(d)

About the Author

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.

During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.