Maugham's set of stories about his wartime spy John Ashenden, who prefigured James Bond with his exploits with exotic enemies and exotic women
William Somerset Maugham was born in 1874 and lived in Paris until he was ten. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, and at Heidelberg University. He spent some time at St. Thomas' Hospital with the idea of practising medicine, but the success of his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, published in 1897, won him over to literature. Of Human Bondage, the first of his masterpieces, came out in 1915, and with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence his reputation as a novelist was established. At the same time his fame as a successful playwright and writer was being consolidated with acclaimed productions of various plays and the publication of several short story collections. His other works include travel books, essays, criticism and the autobiographical The Summing Up and A Writer's Notebook. In 1927 Somerset Maugham settled in the South of France and lived there until his death in 1965
The most persuasive espionage fiction
*New York Times*
The first spy story written by someone who had been there and done
that. A humane and compassionate antidote to two-fisted,
square-jawed heroes battling dastardly foreigners. The head of
British Intelligence is known only as "R", anticipating James
Bond's "M" by a quarter of a century
*The Times*
Thoughtful spy novels began with Somerset Maugham's Ashenden,
featuring a detached hero on a journey to disillusion, a process
brought to its apotheosis by le Carre via Greene
*Daily Telegraph*
A collection of stories so accurate that Churchill ordered the
destruction of 14 of them, while Russian intelligence immediately
set up a special unit to read British spy novels for clues
*New Statesman*
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