Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2010
640 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
He was a brilliant teller of tales, one of the most widely read authors of the twentieth century, and at one time the most famous writer in the world, yet W. Somerset Maugham’s own true story has never been fully told. At last, the fascinating truth is revealed in a landmark biography by the award-winning writer Selina Hastings. Granted unprecedented access to Maugham’s personal correspondence and to newly uncovered interviews with his only child, Hastings portrays the secret loves, betrayals, integrity, and passion that inspired Maugham to create such classics as The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage.
Hastings vividly presents Maugham’s lonely childhood spent with unloving relatives after the death of his parents, a trauma that resulted in shyness, a stammer, and for the rest of his life an urgent need for physical tenderness. Here, too, are his adult triumphs on the stage and page, works that allowed him a glittering social life in which he befriended and sometimes fell out with such luminaries as Dorothy Parker, Charlie Chaplin, D. H. Lawrence, and Winston Churchill.
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham portrays in full for the first time Maugham’s disastrous marriage to Syrie Wellcome, a manipulative society woman of dubious morality who trapped Maugham with a pregnancy and an attempted suicide. Hastings also explores Maugham’s many affairs with men, including his great love, Gerald Haxton, an alcoholic charmer and a cad. Maugham’s courageous work in secret intelligence during two world wars is described in fascinating detail—experiences that provided the inspiration for the groundbreaking Ashenden stories. From the West End to Broadway, from China to the South Pacific, Maugham’s restless and remarkably productive life is thrillingly recounted as Hastings uncovers the real stories behind such classics as “Rain,” The Painted Veil, Cakes & Ale, and other well-known tales.
An epic biography of a hugely talented and hugely conflicted man, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham is the definitive account of Maugham’s extraordinary life.
"Starred Review. Hastings is a stylish and sensitive writer who addresses her subject's double life with insight and compassion." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. A powerful, revealing and authoritative depiction of one the 20th century's most notorious literary figures." - Kirkus Reviews
"[Hastings] provides a searing emotional history … so powerfully written, in places so shocking, as to give a series of physical jolts to the reader. Hasting's book cannot be bettered." – Sunday Telegraph
"Brilliant … Every so often, a biography appears of such authority and such power that it is more than a chronicle of a human life, it is a work of art … Such is Selina Hastings' skill that this horrible story is richly enjoyable." - A. N. Wilson, Reader's Digest
"A sensitive and sympathetic biography." - Sunday Times
"Pitch-perfect: supple, confident and written with something of the same beady detachment (and enjoyable signature streak of malice) as the great tale-teller himself." –Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph
"The places and people she describes are portrayed with such graphic clarity and assurance. She sets a scene or establishes a personality with great economy and intensity." - Observer
"An impressively perceptive and often moving account of an extraordinarily interesting man." - Literary Review
"Excellent…wholly convincing and always interesting…an outstanding biography." - Scotsman
"Engrossing … a brilliant evocation." – Financial Times
This information about The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Selina Hastings worked at the Daily Telegraph before becoming the literary editor for Harpers & Queen. She is the author of Nancy Mitford: A Biography, Rosamond Lehmann, and Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, which won the Marsh Biography Award. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she has been a judge of the Booker, Whitbread, British Academy, Ondaatje, and Duff Cooper prizes, and of the UK Biographers’ Award.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
