Cakes And Ale : Cakes And Ale

Cakes And Ale : Cakes And Ale
ISBN: 9780099282778
Publication Date: 2 March 2000

When CAKES AND ALE was first published in 1930, it roused a storm of controversy, since many people imagined they saw in its pages recognisable portraits of literary figures now no more. The tumult and the shouting soon died down, leaving the story to take its place as one of the finest of Maugham's novels. It was also the one for which he most wanted to be remembered. It has about it a sense of perfection that is rare in a novel and a lyrical warmth that one would look in vain for elsewhere in Maugham's writing.

About the Author

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