37 “[Kipling] is our greatest story writer” A Choice of Kipling’s Prose, xxviii.
38 “The fact is that, like drinking” WSM to Bert Alanson, September 5, 1954, Stanford.
39 “[My] fertile invention” WSM to Klaus Jonas, May 14, 1956, HRHRC.
40 “Writing with me” Daily Express, January 20, 1958.
41 “the last one ‘The Delicate Nature’” WSM to H. E. Bates, September 22, 1953, private collection.
42 “I could not stand the life” WSM to Kate Bruce, January 18, 1951, Berg.
43 “It would be hypocrisy” WSM to Barbara Back, August 10, 1955, HRHRC.
44 “Tra la la, no more alimony” Somerset and All the Maughams, 20.
45 “I am like a passenger” A Writer’s Notebook, 333.
46 “an iguana sunning itself” Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham, 43.
47 “with his pale deeply furrowed face” Everything to Lose: Diaries 1945–1960, Frances Partridge (Little, Brown, 1985), 131.
48 “reminded of the lizards” Harold Nicolson to Robin Maugham, December 17, 1958, Lilly.
49 “[Willie] was shapely but tiny” Glenway Wescott interview with Ted Morgan, Jenman.
50 “a seedy relic of the Edwardian era” WSM to Douglas M. Black, January 30, 1957, Jenman.
51 “a poor old celluloid doll” Beaton in the Sixties, introduction by Hugo Vickers (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), 17.
52 “If you think I’m g-g-g-ga-ga” Tribulations and Laughter, 308.
53 “[Alan] is not nearly as simple” The Isherwood Century, ed. James J. Berg and Chris Freeman (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000).
54 “an intriguer, a schemer” The Bonus of Laughter, Alan Pryce-Jones (Hamish Hamilton, 1987), 224.
55 “Parents subjected me” unpublished ms, Margaret Herrick Library.
56 “I’m always thinking about the future” Alan Searle to Bert Alanson, January 12, 1950, Stanford.
57 “What will become of me” Alan Searle interview with Robert Calder, Jenman.
58 “I want you to know” Liza Maugham conversation with Pat Wallace, Frere Family Collection.
59 “It will also be very nice for you both” Ibid.
60 “Dearest Daddy, You really are making me quite miserable” Ibid.
61 “As far as he’s concerned” Ibid.
62 “Alan must have had a hand in it” Ibid.
63 “his vile so-called daughter” Alan Searle to Klaus Jonas, April 17, 1963, HRHRC.
64 “a scavenger … a bitch” Alan Searle to Jerry Zipkin, August 21, 1963, HGARC.
65 “Alan incites Willie against Liza” The Letters of Ann Fleming, ed. Mark Amory (Collins Harvill, 1985), 184.
66 “There is something in her” Diana Marr-Johnson to Alan Searle, April 12, 1962, HGARC.
67 “I only hope that [Maugham]” Alan Searle to Robin Maugham, June 1, 1962, HGARC.
68 (“I am peace-loving”) Alan Searle to Sam Behrman, July 26, 1963, Jenman.
69 “He is devoured by retrospective hate” The Noël Coward Diaries, 508.
70 “I am thrilled” Alan Searle to Lord Beaverbrook, November 11, 1961, Parliamentary Archives BBK/C/293.
71 “a very imperfect and tormented creature” Looking Back, 144.
72 “All hell was let loose” A. S. Frere to Ted Morgan, March 11, 1978, Jenman.
73 “Entirely contemptible” The Noël Coward Diaries, 511.
74 a senile and scandalous work” Yours, etc: Letters to the Press, 1965–1989 (Reinhardt, 1989).
75 “an obscene little toad” Rebecca West to Beverley Nichols, March 30, 1962, University of Delaware.
76 “shabby, sordid, embarrassing” Remembering Mr. Maugham, 68.
77 “the ancient Maugham mined his own monument” United States, Gore Vidal, 237.
78 “I believe neither in the existence of God” Looking Back, 128.
79 “The maps are out” Alan Searle to Jane Clark, February 11, 1955, Wake Forest.
80 “Never again will I stir an inch” Alan Searle interview with Ted Morgan, Jenman.
81 “Rarely sensible, and in acute misery” Alan Searle to Jerry Zipkin, August 21, 1963, HGARC.
82 “Poor, poor Willie” Alan Searle to Robin Maugham, December 1, 1963, HGARC.
83 (“even today the pain of her passing”) Sunday Express, January 26, 1964.
84 “I called on Willie Maugham” The Noël Coward Diaries, ed. Graham Payn and Sheridan Morley (Papermac, 1983), 607.
85 “I have been shut up with a madman” Alan Searle to Robin Maugham, April 5, 1965, HGARC.
86 “He lives in some terrifying world” Alan Searle to Jerry Zipkin, April 5, 1965, HGARC.
87 “I have a good many” Alan Searle to Glenway Wescott, July 2, 1965, Maryland.
88 “like a malignant crab” Robin Maugham unpublished diaries, Lilly.
89 “[B]lack double-breasted quilted smoking jacket” Robin Maugham unpublished diaries, Lilly.
90 “Willie is now completely out of his mind” Alan Searle to Ellen Doubleday, November 27, 1965, Princeton.
91 “It wasn’t sexual” Mary Dawson interview with author, May 18, 2006.
92 “The first little splutter of interest” WSM to Karl Pfeiffer, May 1, 1946, HRHRC.
93 “the most enthralling of human activities” The Summing Up, 222.
94 “can tell his secret yet not betray it” Mrs. Craddock, 221.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• • •
EDITIONS OF THE WORKS OF SOMERSET MAUGHAM REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT:
Liza of Lambeth (Vintage, 2000)
The Making of a Saint (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966)
Orientations (Fisher Unwin, 1899)
The Hero (Hutchinson, 1901)
Mrs. Craddock (Vintage, 2000)
A Man of Honour (Dramatic Publishing Company, 1903)
The Merry-Go-Round (Vintage, 2000)
The Land of the Blessed Virgin (Knopf, 1920)
The Bishop’s Apron (Chapman & Hall, 1906)
The Explorer (Heinemann, 1922)
The Magician (Vintage, 2000)
The Tenth Man (Heinemann, 1913)
Landed Gentry (Grace) (Heinemann, 1913)
Of Human Bondage (Vintage, 2000)
The Moon and Sixpence (Vintage, 1999)
The Trembling of a Leaf (Heinemann, 1921)
On a Chinese Screen (Vintage, 2000)
Loaves and Fishes (Heinemann, 1924)
The Painted Veil (Vintage, 2001)
The Casuarina Tree (Oxford University Press, 1985)
The Letter (Heinemann, 1927)
Ashenden (Vintage, 2000)
The Gentleman in the Parlour (Vintage, 2001)
Cakes and Ale (Vintage, 2000)
First Person Singular (Heinemann, 1931)
The Narrow Corner (Vintage, 2001)
Ah King (Oxford University Press, 1986)
Don Fernando (Vintage, 2000)
Cosmopolitans (Doubleday, Doran, 1936)
Theatre (Vintage, 2000)
The Summing Up (Vintage, 2001)
Christmas Holiday (Vintage, 2001)
France at War (Heinemann, 1940)
Books and You (Doubleday, Doran, 1940)
The Mixture as Before (Heinemann, 1940)
Up at the Villa (Vintage, 2000)
Strictly Personal (Doubleday, Doran, 1941)
The Hour Before the Dawn (Doubleday, Doran, 1942)
The Razor’s Edge (Vintage, 2000)
Then and Now (Vintage, 2001)
Creatures of Circumstance (Heinemann, 1947)
Catalina (Vintage, 2001)
Great Novelists and Their Novels (John C. Winston, 1948)
A Writer’s Notebook (Vintage, 2001)
The Writer’s Point of View (Cambridge University Press for the National Book League, 1951)
The Vagrant Mood (Vintage, 2001)
Points of View (Vintage, 2000)
Purely for My Pleasure (Heinemann, 1962)
Collecte
d Short Stories, Vol. I (Vintage, 2000)
Collected Short Stories, Vol. II (Vintage, 2002)
Collected Short Stories, Vol. III (Vintage, 2002)
Collected Short Stories, Vol. IV (Vintage, 2002)
The Plays of Somerset Maugham (Heinemann, 1931–1934)
Vol. I: Lady Frederick, Mrs. Dot, Jack Straw
Vol. II: Penelope, Smith, The Land of Promise
Vol. III: Our Betters, The Unattainable (Caroline), Home and Beauty
Vol. IV: The Circle, The Constant Wife, The Bread-Winner
Vol. V: Caesar’s Wife, East of Suez, The Sacred Flame
Vol. VI: The Unknown, For Services Rendered, Sheppey
The Traveller’s Library, compiled and with notes by W. Somerset Maugham (Doubleday, Doran, 1937)
Tellers of Tales, selected and with an introduction by W. Somerset Maugham (Doubleday, Doran, 1939)
W. Somerset Maugham’s Introduction to Modern English and American Literature (New Home Library, 1943)
A Choice of Kipling’s Prose, selected and with an introductory essay by W. Somerset Maugham (Macmillan, 1952)
Selected Prefaces and Introductions of W. Somerset Maugham (Heinemann, 1963)
Seventeen Lost Stories by W. Somerset Maugham, compiled by Craig V. Showalter (Doubleday, Doran, 1969)
A Traveller in Romance: Uncollected Writings 1901–1964: W. Somerset Maugham, edited by John Whitehead (Anthony Blond, 1984)
SELECTED LIST OF WORKS ABOUT SOMERSET MAUGHAM
Aldington, Richard. W. Somerset Maugham: An Appreciation. Doubleday, Doran, 1939.
Bason, Frederick T. A Bibliography of the Writings of William Somerset Maugham. Unicorn Press, 1931.
Brander, L. Somerset Maugham: A Guide. Barnes & Noble, 1963.
Brophy, John. Somerset Maugham. Longmans, 1952.
Brown, Ivor. W. Somerset Maugham. International Profiles, 1970.
Calder, Robert Lorin. W. Somerset Maugham and the Quest for Freedom. Heinemann, 1972.
——. Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham. Heinemann, 1989.
——. Beware the British Serpent: The Role of Writers in British Propaganda in the United States, 1939–1945. McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2004.
Connon, Bryan. Somerset Maugham and the Maugham Dynasty. Sinclair-Stevenson, 1997.
Cordell, Richard. Somerset Maugham: A Biographical and Critical Study. Heinemann, 1961.
Curtis, Anthony. The Pattern of Maugham. Quality Book Club, 1974.
——. Somerset Maugham. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987.
Curtis, Anthony, and John Whitehead, eds. W. Somerset Maugham: The Critical Heritage. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.
Dottin, Paul. Somerset Maugham et ses romans. Perrin, 1926.
——. Le Théâtre de Somerset Maugham. Perrin, 1937.
Fisher, Richard B. Syrie Maugham. Duckworth, 1978.
Jonas, Klaus W. The Gentleman from Cap Ferrat. New Haven, Connecticut, Centre for Maugham Studies, 1956.
——. The World of Somerset Maugham. Greenwood Press, 1959.
Jonas, Klaus W., ed. The Maugham Enigma. Peter Owen, 1954.
Kanin, Garson. Remembering Mr. Maugham. Hamish Hamilton, 1966.
MacCarthy, Desmond. William Somerset Maugham: The English Maupassant. Heinemann, 1934
Mander, Raymond, and Joe Mitchenson. Theatrical Companion to Maugham. Rockliff, 1955.
Maugham, the Rt. Hon. Viscount. At the End of the Day. Heinemann, 1954.
Maugham, Robin. Somerset and All the Maughams. Heinemann, 1966.
——. Escape from the Shadows. Hodder & Stoughton, 1972.
——. The Search for Nirvana. W. H. Allen, 1975.
——. Conversations with Willie. W. H. Allen, 1978.
McKnight, Gerald. The Scandal of Syrie Maugham. W. H. Allen, 1980.
Menard, Wilmon. The Two Worlds of Somerset Maugham. Sherbourne Press, 1965.
Meyers, Jeffrey. Somerset Maugham: A Life. Knopf, 2004
Morgan, Ted. Maugham. Simon & Schuster, 1980.
Nichols, Beverley. A Case of Human Bondage. Secker & Warburg, 1966.
Pfeiffer, Karl G. W. Somerset Maugham: A Candid Portrait. Norton, 1959.
Raphael, Frederic. Somerset Maugham and His World. Thames & Hudson, 1976.
Sanders, Charles. W. Somerset Maugham: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him. Northern Illinois University Press, 1970.
Stott, Raymond Toole. A Bibliography of the Works of W. Somerset Maugham. University of Alberta Press, 1973.
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
• • •
Frontispiece. Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s.
INSERT ONE
A lonely child. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin.
Robert Maugham. Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
Edith Maugham. Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
The Rev. Henry Maugham. Courtesy of the Estate of Robin Maugham/Eric Glass Ltd.
Aunt Sophie. Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
Willie and his uncle outside the vicarage. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin.
“Life was before him …” Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
At the King’s School, Canterbury. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin.
Willie, Charlie, and Harry Maugham. Courtesy of Anne Channing.
F. H. Maugham. Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
Gerald Kelly. From a private collection.
Sue Jones. From a private collection.
Ethel Irving. Courtesy of Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection/Foulsham & Banfield/Rotary Photo.
Gladys Cooper. © Getty Images.
Syrie Wellcome. Courtesy of Wellcome Library/London.
The Maughams with Liza. From a private collection.
Gerald Haxton. Courtesy of the British Library.
Maugham aboard RMS Aquitania. © Associated Press.
In Hollywood. © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
A. S. Frere. Courtesy of the Frere family archive/National Portrait Gallery, London.
Eddie Marsh. © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Liza’s wedding. © Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
The Villa Mauresque. © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Maugham and Haxton. Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, courtesy of the Carl Van Vechten Trust.
INSERT TWO
With Churchill and Wells. Courtesy of Comtesse Chandon de Briailles.
Henry James. © Bettmann/Corbis
Edith Wharton. © Bettmann/Corbis
Virginia Woolf. © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
In Macy’s. © Leonard McCombe/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
On Cape Cod. © Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Robin Maugham. Courtesy of the Estate of Robin Maugham/Eric Glass Ltd.
Glenway Wescott. Courtesy of the Estate of George Platt Lynes.
Beverley Nichols. © E. O. Hoppé/Corbis.
Barbara Back. Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
With G. B. Stern. © Associated Press.
Alan Searle. From a private collection.
With Rylands, Mortimer, Hyslop, Haxton, Back, and Marshall. Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
By the pool. Courtesy of the Raymond Mortimer Collection, Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.
Breakfast in bed. © Mirrorpix.
With Liza and Alanson. Courtesy of the Stanford University Special Collection.
With Ellen and Nelson Doubleday. © J. C. C. Glass (photograph by Douglass Glass).
Riding in South Carolina. © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Fishing on the Combahee River. © Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures
/Getty Images.
Evening on the Riviera. Courtesy of Comtesse Chandon de Briailles.
Bridge. © Getty Images.
With Alan. Courtesy of the Estate of Robin Maugham/Eric Glass Ltd.
With Robin. Courtesy of the Neil & Reiden Jenman Collection.
Writing. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• • •
SELINA HASTINGS worked at the Daily Telegraph before becoming the literary editor for Harpers & Queen. She is the author of Nancy Mitford: A Biography, Evelyn Waugh: A Biography, and Rosamond Lehmann. 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. Her biography of Waugh won the Marsh Biography Prize.
Copyright © 2009, 2010 by Selina Hastings
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This work was originally published in the United Kingdom by John Murray Publishers, London, in 2009, in a slightly different form.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Hastings, Selina.
The secret lives of Somerset Maugham: a biography/Selina Hastings.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60371-9
1. Maugham, W. Somerset (William Somerset), 1874–1965.
2. Authors, English—20th century—
Biography. I. Title
PR6025.A86Z6123 2010
823′.912—dc22
[B] 2009035797
www.atrandom.com
Frontispiece photograph courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s
v3.0
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham Page 68