e Intelligence Service (Secret Service) and was sent to Russia to prevent the Bolsheviks from coming to power in Russia and prevent the change of the government.in the 1930 s Maugham settled down near Paris. At the outbreak of World War II he was assigned to special work at the British Ministry of Information in Paris. The Nazi advance overtook him there; he managed, however, to reach England, leaving behind him all his belongings and many of his unfinished manuscripts. In the years following he settled down in England.Human Bondage (1915) is considered to be his masterpiece. It is clearly based on the author s personal experience, but the novel should not be regarded as autobiographical. This is a story about Philip Carey, brought up by his uncle, a vicar. He prayed much and believed in the omnipotence of God. This was the first bondage he experienced in life - religious bondage. Being lame he experienced physical bondage which in a way isolated him from others. He studied art for two years but he realized that his wish to become a real artist would never come true. Philip left Paris to become a medical student. His love affair with Mildred, a waitress in a tea shop, brought him financial difficulties and he left his medical service. The reality which was offered him differed terribly from the ideal of his dream. He experiences other bondages - cruelty, unhappiness, grief and pain, both physical and moral. They all are the consequences of the unjust social system.and Ale (1930) - was claimed by Maugham himself to be the best of his books. It represents the backstage life of literary profession. The Moon and Sixpence (1919) deals with the life of a painter.possessed a keen and observant eye and in his best works he ridiculed philistinism, narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, snobbery, money worship, pretence, self-interest, etc. His acid irony and brilliant style helped him win a huge audience of readers .. S. Maugham, a highly prolific novelist and playwright, has left a legacy of novels, novelettes, short stories, essays and over 20 plays. Maugham's other chief works include: novels - The Painted Veil (1925), The Narrow Corner (1932), The Razor s Edge (1944); plays: The Circle (1921), Caesar s Wife (1922), The Constant Wife (1927), The Sacred Flame (1929). s short stories are based on his numerous travels in the South-East of Asia. There are a great many collections of stories to his credit: The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), On a Chinese Screen (1925), The Casuarina Tree (1926), Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular (1931), A King (1933), Cosmopolitans (1936), Creatures of Circumstances (1947) and others.Moon and Sixpence. The novel which has rather an unusual plot is partly based on the life story of the famous French painter Gauguin, who being an innovator and rebel in art wanted to do away with the conventionalism in bourgeois art.Strickland, a London stockbroker of middle age, who gets obsessed by an irresistible desire to express himself in painting, abandons his business career and his wife. He leaves London for Paris, where he devotes himself to painting. Although none of his paintings are appreciated in Paris and he is almost starving, his decision to paint is irrevocable. The only person who understands Strickland's creative genius is the painter Dirk Stroeve. Trying to save Strickland from a terrible disease and starvation, Dirk Stroeve brings him home where he sacrifices his time, his comfort and his money for Strickland. But instead of gratitude Strickland shows his callousness and inhumanity towards Dirk Stroeve. He seduces Stroeve s wife Blanche who falls in love with him. When the latter takes no more interest in her, she commits suicide.after years of resultless struggle in Paris Strickland moves to Marseilles. He spends about four months at Marseilles where he finds it impossible to earn the small sum he needs to keep body and soul together. His imagination being haunted for a long time by an island all green and sunny, encircled by sea more blue than is found in the Northern latitude , he decides to go to the South Seas. By a chance of luck he boards a ship bound for Australia, where he works as a stoker thus getting to Tahiti. There he marries a Polynesian woman Ata and devotes the rest of his life to painting. Strickland dies of leprosy. According to his will his wife burns their house the walls of which had been covered from ceiling to floor with elaborate compositions by Strickland. Everything had been burnt and only on discovering some canvases Strickland had once carelessly tossed aside during his years of unrewarded work, does the world of art realize it has lost a genius.novel is a...
