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"The Princess and the Nightingale" (1922) – W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >The Princess and the Nightingale, 1922In this post, I am going to talk about a most unusual story among W. Somerset Maugham's works, first published as "The Princess and the Nightingale." It has a curious publication history and is one of a kind in Maugham's œvre. Maugham's repertoire is quite wide. He wrote novels, plays, short stories, essays, criticism, reviews, autobiographies, prefaces, letters to the editor, biographical portraits, screenplays (th…
Analysis: "A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit" (1942) by W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit - Somerset Maugham
"A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit." This Week Magazine, 4 January, 1942.I came across a most interesting piece recently, now finally I have it in front of me. A short story written by W. Somerset Maugham called "A Woman Who Wouldn't Quit." You wouldn't find it anywhere else under that title. It was not recorded by Stott, but it was collected in John Whitehead's A Traveller in Romance. Uncollected Wr…
Analysis of "A Traveller in Romance" (1909): A Narrative of Strangeness
Home > Blog >Printers' Pie 1909
"A Traveller in Romance." Printers' Pie (1909): 97-100."A Traveller in Romance," the very phrase must have caught John Whitehead's fancy when he published his volume of uncollected writings by W. Somerset Maugham under the same title. The story was written in 1909 when Maugham was thirty-five, published in quite an unlikely venue: Printers' Pie.Printers' Pie was an annual publication (shortly I will talk more about th…
W. Somerset Maugham and His 10 Best Novels of All Time
Home > Blog >Album of Maugham's Choice of 10 Best Novels
(click on the image to see the full album)In this post I am going to talk about an interesting facet of collecting W. Somerset Maugham's books, which I suspect would be similar in other collecting activities. When I started to seriously build my collection, my aim was to get all of Maugham's first editions, following the criteria of "true first" as the edition that came out first, whether it is an English or …
Pro-Maugham Apologia in Everybody's
Since I am in the mood of talking about Maugham defence, there is something I found that is of interest. In the last post I included Maugham's letter to the editor of The Academy back in 1897 when his first novel Liza of Lambeth came out. From time to time I have also mentioned other more sympathetic friends and acquaintances who made an effort to discuss our author in positive light, such as George H. Doran, Louis Marlow, Glenway Wescott (despite his more uninhabited and generous informati…
Unrecorded First Appearance of "The Kite" by W. Somerset Maugham
Home > Blog >"The Kite" by W. Somerset Maugham in Today's Woman Nov. 1946
"A Man and His Kite." Today's Woman 15.85 (Nov. 1946): 23, 114–9Recently I found out that this story was printed under the name "A Man and His Kite" in the magazine Today's Woman, a year before its publication as "The Kite" in the collection Creatures of Circumstance (1947). This is not noted in Stott.Today's Woman wasn't a habitual magazine that Maugham pu…
Men Only - W. Somerset Maugham's Caricature by Hynes
Men Only - Somerset Maugham by HynesAnother caricature of W. Somerset Maugham. His physical appearance certainly inspired artistic creations. This time he is rendered in the hands of Edward Sylvester Hynes (1897–1982), as cover of Men Only.
Like Maugham, Hynes also received medical training, but it appears that it was not his calling either. In his time he did caricatures for quite a few important magazines, such as The Strand Magazine, The Sunday Express, The Bystander, Illustrated Sporting …
"I didn't do it!" – Mr. W. Somerset Maugham
Mr. W. Somerset Maugham by QuizAnother interesting find. This cartoon, by Quiz, published in 1925, most certainly is referring to The Painted Veil, which were first serialized in the November 1924 to March 1925 issues of Cosmopolitan, in between the transition of the merging of the two magazines, Cosmopolitan and Hearst's International; in Nash's Pall Mall Magazine from December 1924 to July 1925; and then finally published in book form on 20 March by George H. Doran.
For the controve…
W. Somerset Maugham in Lilliput - March 1938
Lilliput, Mar. 1938W. Somerset Maugham
Lilliput. The Pocket Magazine for Everyone 2.3 (Mar. 1938).
A few days ago, when I received a tiny padded A5 envelope I was not certain what it contained. I had been ordering some books and magazines; a few came in huge boxes stuffed with newspapers or foam peanuts, but I was not expecting anything so small.
A magazine it was. I was a bit surprised by its size, in contrast with its contemporaries that I usually get. I looked eagerly for the Maugham refere…
In Between Purely for My Pleasure (April 1962) and "Looking Back" (June 1962) - W. Somerset Maugham
As I mentioned in an earlier post, one stumbles upon things while one is looking for something else, which jerks one back from a reverie. It is intriguing and disturbing at the same time. This is a brief post just to show a little advertisement on the dust jacket of the first UK edition of Purely for My Pleasure (1962), so that I can stop thinking about it."Looking Back," the very controversial memoirs, first published in three issues in Show in 1962, was several years in the making…
Looking Back - W. Somerset Maugham
"Looking Back." Show 2.6 - 2.8 (June, July, August, 1962)I have finally got all the issues of the Show Magazine, in which W. Somerset Maugham's last memoirs "Looking Back" was published. This post will be about this very controversial piece of writing.
Looking Back at Eighty-Eight Years Old
It was with apprehension that I opened the magazines... It was truly quite an experience. Maugham left instructions that they were not to be re-published again, after its two serial…