William Somerset Maugham was born at the British Embassy in Paris on January 25, 1874. His mother died when he was eight and his father, an English lawyer, died when Maugham was ten. Maugham was sent to England to live with his uncle, a clergyman, and his aunt in Whitstable. He attended King's School in Canterbury, then spent over a year in Germany. From 1892 to 1897, Maugham attended medical school at St. Thomas's Hospital in London, receiving an M. D. degree. However, he had no desire to practice medicine, wanting instead to be a writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth, was published in 1897.

The next ten years constituted Maugham's literary apprenticeship. He published four more novels and a collection of short stories, Orientations: Short Stories (1899). He also wrote plays, but in that genre he had no initial success. But in 1907 his play Lady Frederick ran for over a...