William Somerset Maugham was an English author and playwright.
Born in the British Embassy in Paris, France (legally considered British soil), Maugham endured a traumatic childhood, orphaned at ten when his mother died from tuberculosis and his father died from cancer. He was raised by his aunt and uncle, and bullied by children at school.
Maugham studied medicine at St. Thomas' Hospital, and apprenticed as a midwife in London's Lambeth slum area. He published his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, in 1897; the book depicted the life and death of Liza Kent, a working-class woman. The popular and controversial novel launched Maugham's impressive writing career.
One of the highest-paid writers of the early to mid-twentieth century, Maugham wrote fiction, memoir, travelogues, and plays. His best-known works are Of Human Bondage (1915) and The Moon and Sixpence (1919).
During World War I, Maugham assisted in the ambulance corps and in intelligence work. He was stationed in Russia shortly before the Bolshevik revolution; later, he said that if he had only been sent there six months before, he might have succeeded in his aim of keeping the provisional government in power.
Though he was unhappily married to Syrie Wellcome (a liaison which began when she was still married to her first husband, Henry Wellcome), Maugham's sexual orientation appears to have been primarily homosexual, and he had several male lovers throughout his life. Frederick Gerald Haxton was Maugham's constant companion for nearly thirty years, and he proofread many of Maugham's manuscripts, including Of Human Bondage.
Maugham died on December 16, 1965, in Nice, France.