Secret lives of Somerset Maugham: a biography. Selina Hastings. 2010.

W. Somerset Maugham was a brilliant teller of tales, one of the most widely read authors of the twentieth century. Granted unprecedented access to his personal correspondence and to newly uncovered interviews with his only child, Selina Hastings portrays the secret loves, betrayals, integrity and passion that inspired Maugham to create such classics as The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage.

Hastings vividly presents Maugham’s lonely childhood spent with unloving relatives after the death of his parents, a trauma that resulted in shyness, a stammer, and for the rest of his life an acute emotional vulnerability that he worked hard to conceal. Here too, are his adult triumphs on the stage and page, works that allowed him a glittering social life in which he befriend and sometimes fell out with such luminaries as Dorothy Parker, Charlie Chaplin, DH Lawrence and Winston Churchill.

Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham portrays in full for the first time Maugham’s disastrous marriage to Syria Wellcome, a manipulative society woman who trapped Maugham with pregnancy and an attempted suicide. Hastings also explores Maugham’s many affairs with men, including his great love, Gerald Haxton, an alcoholic charmer and a cad. Maugham’s courageous work in secret intelligence during two world wars is described in fascinating detail - experiences that provided the inspiration for the groundbreaking Ashenden stories. From the West End to Broadway, from China to the South Pacific, Maugham’s restless and remarkably productive life is recounted as Hastings uncovers the real stories behind such classics as Rain, The Painted Veil, Cakes & Ale and other well-known tales.