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England

Author · England

William Somerset Maugham

Died in 1965

William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 in Paris, at the British embassy, was orphaned at ten and was raised by an uncle who was a clergyman; he stammered all his life and spoke French before English. He qualified as a doctor in London and drew his first novel from his training in the poor districts. He worked for the British services in Geneva in 1915 and 1916, then in Russia in 1917. A successful playwright and short-story writer, he was considered in the thirties to be the best-paid writer of his time. He died in 1965.

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