I'm fond of reading. My favourite writer is William Somerset
Maugham and i would like to tell about his biography.
William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and spent his childhood
in Paris in the family of a British diplomat. Having lost his
parents at an early age, he went to live in England with his
uncle, who was a clergyman. He was educated at King's school in
Canterbury studied painting in Paris, went to Heidelbury University
in Germany and spent six years at St.Thomas Hospital in England
studying to be a doctor. He was an unsatisfactory medical student
for his heart wasn't in medicin. He wanted, he had always wanted
to be a writer and in the evening after his tea, he wrote and read.
In 1897 he wrote a novel called "Liza of
Lambeth", sent it
to a publisher and it was accepted. It was something of a
success. So William Somerset Maugham decided to abandon his
medical profession and he did it with relif. The next ten years
were very hard on him. He learned the terrible difficulties of
making a living by writing. But he survived. He became a famous
writer. He never regretted the five years he had spent at the
hospital. They taught him pretty well all he knew about human
nature.
The novel "The moon and sixpence" (1919) is
based on the
life of the artist Paul Gauguin was an immediate success. Maugham
went to Tahiti and lived in Gauguin's hut while writing the book.
His fame as a short story writer began with "The Trembling of a
leaf". Since then he wrote many collections of books, essays and
criticism. Many of his books and stories came out of his
extensive travels in the East. His autobiographical books "The
summing up" and "A writer's Notebook" are remarkable for both
style and sincerity. His books have been reprinted many times.
In 1927 William Somerset Maugham settled in
the South of
France and lived there until his death in 1965.
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