Ten Novels And Their Authors

Description

In this classic guide, Maugham introduces and discusses what he considers to be the ten greatest novels and their authors. Here are some of the formulae of greatness in the genre, as well as the flaws and heresies that enfeeble it. Maugham's choice list: Fielding's "Tom Jones"; Dickens's "David Copperfield"; Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"; Balzac's "Old Man Goriot"; "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky; "The Red and the Black" by Stendhal, "Pride and Prejudice" by Austen; Melville's "Moby Dick"; Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965

The modern writer who has influenced me most -- George Orwell A brilliant entertainer * New York Times *