THE SECRET LIVES OF SOMERSET MAUGHAM

Book ID/图书代码： 11701209B33564

English Summary/英文概要： The definitive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most famous writers

Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), author of classics such as Of Human Bondage and The Razor’s Edge, was one of the best-known writers of his time. Yet much was hidden. Predominantly homosexual, Maugham made a disastrous marriage although deeply in love with a charming but dissolute young man. It was partly to escape his wife that Maugham undertook the journeys that inspired so many stories.

Moving between London, New York and Hollywood, he entertained lavishly at his villa in the south of France, and during both world wars he worked for British Intelligence. Outwardly his life was richly rewarding, but privately he suffered anguish from an unrequited love affair and a shocking final betrayal.

Acclaimed biographer Selina Hastings has had access to Maugham’s private correspondence and to family testimony, shedding a fascinating new light on this extraordinary man.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 一位影響了George Orwell奧威爾和奈波爾V. S. Naipaul的作家，以及間諜小説的鼻祖 - 毛姆William Somerset Maugham

毛姆出生於巴黎。10歲時父母雙亡，由身為牧師的叔父撫養。1885年就讀於坎特伯雷的國王學校，由於體質孱弱又孤僻口吃，倍遭同學及教師的欺侮訕笑，養成他不斷反思的習慣，使他成為一個喜歡冷眼旁觀者。1889年前往德國海德堡，在那裡接觸到哲學家叔本華及作家易卜生，兩人對他產生深刻影響。
1896年創作的第一部小說《蘭貝斯的麗莎》（Liza of Lambeth）直接取材於他在倫敦貧民窟當助產士的見聞。1901～1905年定居巴黎，開始寫劇本。1908年倫敦同時公演他的4部劇作，引起轟動。
毛姆曾任職於英國情報單位，一九一七年被派駐到俄國。根據這段寶貴的經驗，完成《秘密情報員》一書。書評家一致認爲毛姆是間諜小説的鼻祖，而撰寫007故事的伊恩??佛萊明（Ian Fleming）和英國名作家葛林都承認，他們的作品深受到毛姆的影響。戰後他周遊世界，隨時搜集素材寫成膾炙人口的故事。第二次世界大戰中他做為友好使者被派往美國。1953年獲牛津大學名譽學位，1954年獲英國女王授予的榮譽勳章。1958年當選英國皇家文學會副主席。
而毛姆的小說中的四部──《人性枷鎖》、《尋歡作樂》(Cakes and Ale)、《月亮和六便士》(The Moon and Sixpence)以及《刀鋒》（The Razor’s Edge）──已經成為世界文學的經典。《人性枷鎖》 Of Human Bondage的故事，其實是在他自己的人生經歷中，撰寫著他的自傳，描寫著他的心裡的掙扎與成長過程。
知名傳記作家Selina Hastings將帶入我們進入毛姆最不為人知的內心世界，許多經典作品的創作由來，以及從其家庭及婚姻生活如何看出不凡的一生！(Vincent)

Awards/获奖情况：Rights sold:
UK: John Murray
US: Random House
Russia: AST

Reviews:
"Selina Hastings’ highly entertaining but also serious, critical and elegantly written, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham is one of the best biographies of the year."---The Times Literary Supplement

"Brilliant...Every so often, a biography appears of such authority and such power that it is more than a chronicle of a human life, it is a work of art...Such is Selina Hastings’ skill that this horrible story is richly enjoyable."---A. N. Wilson, Reader’s Digest

"An impressively perceptive and often moving account of an extraordinarily interesting man."---Diana Athill, Literary Review

"Excellent...wholly convincing and always interesting...an outstanding biography."---Allan Massie, Scotsman

"Engrossing...a brilliant evocation."---Financial Times

’"One of Maugham’s great strengths as a novelist is his ability to create three-dimensional characters." Hastings’s talent as a biographer is to create three-dimensional novelists [...] her Life of Maugham is pitch-perfect: supple, confident and written with something of the same beady detachment (and enjoyable signature streak of malice) as the great tale-teller himself.’---Nicholas Shakespeare, The Telegraph

"All of [Somerset Maugham’s] activities are covered by Selina Hastings with deft comprehensive efficiency and none of the turgid, indiscriminate details that clutter and elongate some biographies. She depicts the author, spy and host with the cool playful elegance, imaginative sympathy and occasional barbs that one expects from this most accomplished biographer. But beyond her account of a strenuous working life, she provides a searing emotional history of a man whose feelings have been misread as remote, false, shrivelled, calloused. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham is a story of sizzling passion, and of love that was generous, unrequited and enduring beyond reason- and time and again betrayed. [...] The [last] chapter is so powerfully written, in places so shocking, as to give a series of physical jolts to the reader. Hastings’s book cannot be bettered."---Richard Davenport-Hines, The Telegraph

"It’s a grim morality tale that might, in earlier times, have been painted by William Hogarth or Hieronymus Bosch. Hastings narrates it with relish and fairness, in roughly equal proportions."---The Sunday Mail

"Selina Hastings is a virtuoso chronicler of Britain’s champagne literati, whose former subjects include Evelyn Waugh, Rosamond Lehmann and Nancy Mitford. She tells Maugham’s tale of glamorous dysfunction with charm. Her new access to letters and family testimony makes this book a definitive work, and her gently Freudian interpretation is sympathetic. [...] Hastings convinces, entertains and rescues Maugham from the stereotype of flashy expatriate."---The Financial Times

"Her superior, marvellously rich synthesis of so many resources... produces a narrative that is strikingly clear yet never reductive. It’s a gripping, often sensational account of a singular life."---The Independent

About the Author/作者介绍： Selina Hastings，傳記作家，曾擔任英國「每日電訊報」記者長達十四年。目前擔任Harpers & Queen雜誌的文學編輯。曾為多位名人作傳如Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh 及Rosamond Lehmann等。其中艾佛林渥夫Evelyn Waugh的傳記更獲得「瑪許傳記獎」Marsh Biography Prize。

Format:照片

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：SOLD

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE(到期可授)

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：

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