The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham [Hardcover]

'excellent...wholly convincing and always interesting...an outstanding biography'

'[Hastings] provides a searing emotional history...her closing 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'

'One of the fascinating pleasures of this superb biography [is] to see the veils being stripped away and the messy truth about Maugham's life and relationships exposed...Hastings recounts the mass of detail and the massive literary output with great sagacity and the sharpest of eyes'

'The places and people she describes are portrayed with such graphic clarity and assurance. She sets a scene or establishes a personality with great economy and intensity'

'Engrossing...a brilliant evocation'

'A remarkable book, sympathetic and sardonic, comic and tragic, serious and naughty'

'Hastings has teased out the complicated chronicle...and offers a fuller picture then ever of [Maugham]'

'The best parts of Hasting's engrossing book are her descriptions of Maugham as a young literary man on the make...a sensitive and sympathetic biography'

'An outstanding biography...replete with insights and asides, perceptive synopses and analyses of the work and, for those who want it, an abundance of salacious scurrility, this is a tale that would have held Maugham's attention from start to finish'

'This steady-eyed biography of an extraordinary, extravagant, generous and bitter artist will not only fascinate its readers but encourage some to go to his work for the first time'

'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...brilliant...such is Selina Hasting's skill that this horrible story is richly enjoyable'

'Selina Hastings' excellent biography, perceptive, well-written and with a happy turn of phrase'

'Hastings narrates it with relish and fairness, in roughly equal proportions, giving somewhat dutiful space to Maugham's literary achievements before excitedly leaping back into the fray of greed, sex and violence'

'Hasting'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'

' All this is chronicled brilliantly by Selina Hastings, whose research, empathy and style cannot be faulted...an impressively perceptive and often moving account of an extraordinarily interesting man'

'A biographer who is second to none...The result is nothing less than a triumph...Hastings shares some of her subject's best literary attributes...Be warned: once picked up, this excellent biography is impossible to put down,'

'Well written, continuously interesting, generous and fair'

'The strength of Hasting's book lies in its refusal to simplify a complex man'

'A definitive biography...,'

Praise for EVELYN WAUGH by Selina Hastings

'Perceptive, witty and beautifully written'

'She has written a sympathetic and highly intelligent book, which also - rarity of rarities these days - reads rapidly. It is sympathetic also because . . . the author adores gossip'

'Entertaining, delightful and rewarding . . . The narrative is at once gripping and thoughtful on every page'

'Her style is supremely elegant and her eye for detail brings dazzle and wit to every page . . . This is a monumental book'

'A brilliant, three-dimensional portrait'

Praise for ROSAMOND LEHMANN by Selina Hastings

'Mischief, gossip, acuity and admiration - and not to be missed'

'A gorgeous piece of work . . . exactly right for its subject: fast-paced, vivid, bursting with characters, gossip and emotions, a book you want to gobble up . . . A fine and compelling biography'

'I can think of few biographies that are as un-put-downable as a novel, but Selina Hastings has produced one: fluidly elegant, witty, detached yet utterly gripping'

'Literary biography could hardly be better done.'

'Selina Hastings has coped manfully with the task of summarising Maugham's huge oeuvre without distracting her readers from his long and eventful life'

'The year's best biography by far'

Praise for EVELYN WAUGH by Selina Hastings

'Perceptive, witty and beautifully written'

'She has written a sympathetic and highly intelligent book, which also - rarity of rarities these days - reads rapidly. It is sympathetic also because . . . the author adores gossip'

'Entertaining, delightful and rewarding . . . The narrative is at once gripping and thoughtful on every page'

'Her style is supremely elegant and her eye for detail brings dazzle and wit to every page . . . This is a monumental book'

'A brilliant, three-dimensional portrait'

Praise for ROSAMOND LEHMANN by Selina Hastings

'Mischief, gossip, acuity and admiration - and not to be missed'

'A gorgeous piece of work . . . exactly right for its subject: fast-paced, vivid, bursting with characters, gossip and emotions, a book you want to gobble up . . . A fine and compelling biography'

'I can think of few biographies that are as un-put-downable as a novel, but Selina Hastings has produced one: fluidly elegant, witty, detached yet utterly gripping'

'Literary biography could hardly be better done.'

'Selina Hastings has coped manfully with the task of summarising Maugham's huge oeuvre without distracting her readers from his long and eventful life'

'The year's best biography by far'

'Somerset Maugham? If anybody ever sold their soul to the devil, he did, and with sizzling relish!' Stephen Tennant, in a letter to Hugo Vickers

For nearly sixty years Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was one of the most famous writers in the world, and yet his personal life was largely kept hidden. An enormously successful playwright and the author of over a hundred short stories and twenty-one novels - several of which, Of Human Bondage, Cakes and Ale and The Razor's Edge, are now established classics - Maugham early became an expert at concealment. Predominantly homosexual, Maugham made a disastrous marriage to Syrie Wellcome, although deeply in love with the charming but dissolute Gerald Haxton. It was partly to escape his wife that Maugham undertook the extensive journeys in the Far East that inspired so many of his memorable short stories. A talented linguist, during both world wars Maugham worked for British Intelligence. In between he moved in literary and theatrical circles in London, New York and Hollywood and entertained lavishly at his luxurious villa in the south of France. 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 extensive private correspondence as well as to important family testimony, which sheds a fascinating new light on this complex and extraordinary man.