Versatile British novelist W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) created tales shaped by suspense, irony, and a sharp sense of human nature. Across more than twenty novels, twenty-five plays, and a hundred short stories, he showed a devotion to storytelling and creativity that never wavered.

“Imagination grows by exercise,” he said. “Contrary to common belief, it is more powerful in the mature than in the young.”

Orphaned at age ten, Maugham was a shy child who spoke with a stutter. He drew on his lonely childhood experiences to create stories told in a direct, intimate voice. During his final year in medical school, with characteristic precision, he wrote his first novel, Liza of Lambeth.

Known for his clear, clean writing style, Maugham influenced generations. George Orwell admired his power to tell a story plainly and truthfully, without unnecessary decoration.

“To write simply is as difficult as to be good,” Maugham reflected. “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

His famous works include the autobiographical Of Human Bondage (1915) and the portrait of Paul Gauguin in The Moon and Sixpence (1919). Later novels, including Cakes and Ale (1930) and The Razor’s Edge (1944), carried the same clarity and moral curiosity that defined his voice.

Once a British spy in Russia, he volunteered as an ambulance driver during World War I. He continued to travel widely to deepen his craft, listening for rhythms, gestures, and stories in the world around him.

“The ideas for stories that thronged my brain would not let me rest till I had got rid of them by writing them,” he explained. He asked much of himself, and he met the page with steady discipline.