William Somerset Maum

William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) was one of the most popular and commercially successful British writers of the twentieth century. Born in Paris and trained as a doctor at St Thomas's Hospital in London, Maugham drew on his medical experience for his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897). He achieved theatrical fame with the play Lady Frederick (1907), and by the 1930s he was reportedly the highest-paid author in the world.

Maugham is best known for his novels of keen psychological insight and worldly cynicism, including Of Human Bondage (1915), a semi-autobiographical masterpiece chronicling a young man's obsessive love and struggle for freedom; The Moon and Sixpence (1919), inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin; Cakes and Ale (1930), a sharp satire of literary society; and The Razor's Edge (1944), exploring one man's spiritual quest. He was also a master of the short story, producing acclaimed works such as "Rain" and "The Letter," many set in the South Seas and colonial Asia where he traveled extensively.

Renowned for his lucid, economical prose and ironic observation of human nature, Maugham also wrote the celebrated autobiographical work The Summing Up (1938). He died in France in 1965.