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Maugham, W. Somerset (1 874-1765) MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET + BIBLIOGRAPHY. Louis Hyde, ed., Rat sion to Russia, Maugham had met and and the Devil: Iournal Letters of P. 0. fallen in love with Gerald Haxton, a San Matthiessen and Russell Cheney, Francisco youth of twenty-two who was Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1978. Wayne R. Dynes serving in the same ambulance unit. It was an attraction of opposites: Haxton was a gregarious, extroverted, dashing scoundrel, MAUGHAM,W. SOMERSETwhile Maugham was shy and closeted. (1874-1765) Maugham also had a daughter during the English novelist, short story war, by Mrs. Syrie Wellcome, whom he writer, playwright, and essayist. A descen- married after she was divorced. dant of English barristers, W. Somerset The marriage was not a success: Maugham was born in theBritish embassy Maugham spent most of his time abroad, in Paris. French was his mother tongue; he traveling in exotic locales with Haxton, began tamaster English only when he was who not only supplied local boys for orphaned at the age of ten and sent to live Maugham, but much of the raw material with his uncle, Henry Maugham, a clergy- for his short stories. Maugham finally fled man in the Church of England. Maugham to his new villa, the famous "Mauresque," had his first homosexual experience in on the French Riviera, to take up life with 1890 with the aesthete John Ellingham Haxton. Mr. and Mrs. Maugham were Brooks, during a stay in Germany. But divorced in 1928. Maugham was and remained an Edwar- Maugham had returned to the dian, who insisted on keeping up appear- novel in 1918 with Of Human Bondage. ances. He refused to admit his homosexu- Others followed in succeeding years, as ality until the end of his life, and then only well as several collections of short stories. to a trusted few. Attempts to discuss the He had the knack of creating "properties" subject in any favorable way were sure to and was able to sell his work several times bring instant and permanent ostracism. over-the short story could be turned into Not daring to tell his uncle that a play, which was then filmed and filmed he had decided to become a writer, again. The money flowed in and Maugham Maugham enrolled in medical school and entertained the titled, the famous, and the produced his first novel, Liza of Lambeth. intelligent at the Mauresque-as well as He passed the next ten years in some handsome young men, frequently procured desperation. He witnessed, with dismay, for him by Haxton, who was rapidly slip- the trial of Oscar Wilde: like the Great ping into alcoholism. Depression, the Wilde trial left its mark on Between the wars, Maugham an entire generation. continued to turn out short stories, many Maugham was contemplating a of them about his travels in the Far East. return to medicine when success struck. He antagonized the entire British popula- onOctober 26,1907, Maugham's comedy tion of Malaya by staying as their honored "Lady Frederick" opened in London. The guest, absorbing all the local gossip, and play was a smash hit; he soon had four writing up the nastiest bits in flimsy dis- plays running simultaneously, and began guise when he returned to Europe. to grow rich. He abandoned the novel for He spent much of World War II as the theatre, and spent the next two dec- a guest of the Doubledays in South Caro- ades churningout product for this market. lina. An estrangement between Maugham During World War I Maugham and Haxton was suddenly ended by served as a British spy in Russia-an expe- Haxton's death in New York in 1944. For rience which he used for his "Ashenden" a moment, Maugham's treasured faqade stories. Just before his (unsuccessful)mis- disappeared; he wept openly and bitterly at the funeral. 9 MAUGHAM,W. SOMERSET He returned to the Mauresque East his own territory, and he had a defi- after the war and acquired a docile young nite genius for telling a tale. man to replace Haxton: Alan Searle. The Maugham's influence on homo- new man had the unpleasant chore of at- sexuality in our time has been at once non- tending to the famous writer during his existent and pervasive. Securely closeted, last twenty years, which were marred by his literary work contains only a few pass- paranoia and immense bitterness. He ing mentions of the subject, from a very brooded particularly on his worth as an safe distance. Yet he was known to be author; his wealth was obvious but his homosexual, and discreetly entertained merit remained problematic. In the last the international gay community at the years, Maugham fell victim to senile Mauresque. Maugham set the style for dementia, and would burst into obsceni- many upper-class homosexuals of his time: ties during an otherwise friendly conver- they were to be Anglophile gentlemen, of sation. Many of the attacks were so severe urbane wit and a taste for modern art, with that he had to be put to sleep with tranquil- a strong bias toward the French as the izers. He also made a bizarre attempt to second-most-preferrednation. They would disinherit his daughter and adopt Alan not discuss such mundane matters as sex, Searle as his son, an effort which was using polished manners to protect their defeated by French law. closeted existence. The patterniscertainly Maugham's place as a writer, the not extinct today. question which so obsessed him, is fairly Maugham summed up his own secure. He is frequently referred to as a life bitterly in his famous remark to the writer of the second rank, but also admit- effect that he had wasted his life pretend- ted to be of the very best second-raters. ing that he was three quarters heterosex- Throughout his working life, Maugham ual and one quarter homosexual, while the wrote for six hours in the morning, never reality was the other way round. rising without having completed at least a After Somerset Maugham's death, thousand words. Over a long career, he his nephew Robin Maugham (1916-1981) would have produced over ten million recycled his "memoirs" of Uncle Willie words of material; he was prolific through into no less than three books. Robin, a discipline. lifelong alcoholic with a history of mental His plays have mostly perished, illness and sadomasochism, never had the although "The Circle" and "The Constant intimate acquaintance he claimed with Wife" have been revived in the 1970s. Of his celebrated uncle, and often retells sto- his novels, at least four have shown stay- ries heard from Barbara Back and Gerald ing power: Of Human Bondage (notable Haxton. Some of these may be pure fan- for its treatment of unrequited love, as tasy, such as the bizarre theory that well as its cruel portrait of his uncle Henry Maugham sold his soul to Aleister Crowley Maugham), The Moon and Sixpence (a in return for literary success. Robin pur- thinly disguised fictionalization of Paul sued a literary career with little distinc- Gauguin's life], Cakes and Ale (Maugham's tion (The Servant is still remembered own favorite and perhaps his best, a fic- today); his real energies were devoted to tionalization of the life of Thomas Hardy), the bottle and to social climbing. A collec- and The Razor's Edge (a story of Eastern 1 tion of dismal homosexual stories (The mysticism which strangely presaged the Boy from Beirut, San Francisco, 1982)did hippie movement of the 1960s and has nothing to enhance his tarnished reputa- been filmed several times]. Maugham's I tion. short stories stand unchallenged-he made the world of theBritish colonials in the Far MCALMON, ROBERT 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ted Morgan, Williams, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, Maugham, New York: Simon & Mary Butts, Gertrude Stein, H. D., Djuna Schuster, 1980. Barnes, and Saikaku Ihara [Quaint Tales of Geoff Puterbaugh Samurais). In their magazine Williams and MCALMON,ROBERT McAlmon had called for an "essential (1896-1956) contact between words and the locality." American writer and publisher. In his own fiction, McAlrnon achieved McAlmon was born in Clifton, Kansas, the that goal. His own Contact Press issued son of an itinerant Presbyterian minister, his first volumes: A Hasty Bunch (1922),A the youngest of ten children. Of his mother Companion Volume (19231, Post-Adoles- (BessUrquhart], he wrote: "Her love's my cence (1923), Village: As It Happened prison,/ and my pity is the lock." The through a Fifteen Year Period (19241, Dis- family migrated through a number of South tinguished Air (Grim Fairy Tales) 11 925); Dakota towns into Minneapolis and even- while Black Sun Press published The In- tually California. McAlmon attended the definite Huntress and 0 ther Stories (Paris, universities of Minnesota (1916) andsouth- 1932).In his portraits of Dakota farm life, em California (191 7-20], but he received Greenwich Village parties, and gay Berlin, more education as a Western farmhand, as McAlmon wrote it down just as it hap- a merchant mariner, and in the Army Air pened, but he did not then find and has not Force, where he was stationed at San Di- now found a wide audience. His four vol- ego in 1918. The airmen inspired his first umes of poetry found a wider range of poems published in college and in Poetry publishers: Explorations (London: Egoist (March 19191. Press, 19211, The Portrait of a Generation In 1920, McAlmon moved first to (Paris: Contact, 1926)) North America, Chicago and then to New York City in Continent of Conjecture (Paris: Contact, search of freedom and companions. In New 1929))Not Alone Lost (Norfolk, CT: New York he worked nude as a male model and Directions, 1937).
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