Of Human Bondage Mass market paperbound - 2007

W. 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 afterwards walked the wards of St. Thomas's Hospital with a view to practice in medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), won him over to letters. Something of his hospital experience is reflected, however, in the first of his masterpieces, Of Human Bondage (1915), and with The Moon and Sixpence (1919) his reputation as a novelist was assured.

His position as one of the most successful playwrights on the London stage was being consolidated simultaneously. His first play, A Man of Honour (1903), was followed by a procession of successes just before and after the First World War. (At one point only Bernard Shaw had more plays running at the same time in London.) His theatre career ended with Sheppey (1933).

His fame as a short-story writer began with The Trembling of a Leaf, sub-titled Little Stories of the South Sea Islands, in 1921, after which he published more than ten collections.

W. Somerset Maugham's general books are fewer in number. They include travel books, such as On a Chinese Screen (1922) and Don Fernando (1935), essays, criticism, and the self-revealing The Summing Up (1938) and A Writer's Notebook (1949).

W. Somerset Maugham became a Companion of Honour in 1954. He died in 1965.

William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) studied medicine, but the quick success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), started him on his lifelong literary career, during which he would become one of the most popular English authors since Dickens. His own life, however, was more tragic, shocking, and fascinating than any novel. After his adored parents died, he grew up in a miserable vicarage and suffered from a physical handicap of which he was ashamed. During his lifetime, Maugham would marry and divorce, be sent to Russia as a spy, and entertain such celebrities as Jean Cocteau, Winston Churchill, Nol Coward, the Aga Khan, and Ian Fleming at his Riviera mansion. Among his masterpieces are Of Human Bondage, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge, and The Moon and Sixpence. In addition, such works as "The Letter" and "Rain" established Maugham as a gifted short story writer.

Benjamin DeMott (1924-2005) was professor of English and the Mellon professor of humanities at Amherst College. The author of two novels, he was best known for his cultural criticism in leading periodicals and in such books as The Imperial Middle: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Class and The Trouble with Friendship: Why Americans Can't Think Straight About Race.

Maeve Binchy (1940-2012) was the New York Times bestselling author of Quentins, Scarlet Feather, Tara Road (an Oprah's Book Club Selection), Circle of Friends, Light a Penny Candle, and many other novels.