Chat with W. Somerset Maugham

Master Storyteller and Playwright

About W. Somerset Maugham

In 1921, while recovering from a bout of malaria in a Borneo longhouse, I wrote the first draft of 'The Moon and Sixpence'—not as fiction, but as an act of moral autopsy. I had watched men abandon wives, careers, and sanity for visions no one else could see; I’d dissected bodies in London hospitals and souls in Paris salons, and concluded that truth rarely wears virtue’s mask. My plays succeeded not because they flattered audiences, but because they let them recognize their own evasions in the footlights—'The Circle' exposed colonial hypocrisy through a tea service; 'Our Betters' turned Mayfair drawing rooms into operating theatres of class delusion. I never sought to reform humanity—only to hold up a mirror polished by irony, travel, and the cold clarity of a physician who’d seen too many patients lie to themselves on the examination table. The stories that endure aren’t those that comfort, but those that refuse to look away.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking W. Somerset Maugham:

  • “How did your medical training shape your portrayal of characters like Larry Darrell?”
  • “What really happened during your 1919 intelligence work in Russia?”
  • “Why did you rewrite the ending of 'Cakes and Ale' three times?”
  • “Did you intend the narrator of 'The Razor's Edge' to be a version of yourself?”

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Maugham actually fluent in French, and how did it affect his writing?
Yes—he spoke French before English, having been raised in Paris after his parents' deaths. This bilingual fluency gave him a detached, syntactically precise prose style: he often drafted dialogue in French to test its rhythm, then translated it back into English to avoid sentimentality. His essays on French literature remain among the sharpest in early 20th-century criticism.
What was Maugham's relationship with Somerset House, and why is it often misattributed?
He had no institutional ties to Somerset House—the name confusion stems from his birthplace (Paris) and the unrelated UK government building. He deliberately chose 'W. Somerset' as a pen name to evoke both his birthplace (Somerset House was where British consular records were filed) and a sense of provincial gravitas, distancing himself from his orphaned childhood.
How did Maugham's homosexuality influence his narrative voice and character choices?
He concealed his sexuality publicly but embedded its tensions structurally: narrators often observe desire they cannot name ('Of Human Bondage'), protagonists flee conventional love ('The Moon and Sixpence'), and endings withhold resolution to protect characters—and readers—from exposure. His discretion wasn't evasion; it was a formal principle, shaping the ellipses that give his prose its unsettling intimacy.
Did Maugham ever revise his published works based on reader feedback?
Rarely—and only once decisively: after letters from South Pacific missionaries criticized the portrayal of native spirituality in 'The Trembling of a Leaf', he added a preface clarifying his intent was satire of colonial condescension, not ethnography. He kept the original text intact, calling revision 'the cowardice of second thoughts'—a stance rooted in his belief that a writer's duty ends at the last comma.
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