Posts tagged: W. Somerset Maugham

Stocking Up on Penguins for Christmas 2011

Our own Mr. Duffy recommends the Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection. 1,082 titles, “all great works of literature totaling nearly half a million pages,” from Shakespeare to the great Somerset Maugham.No, they’re not digitized: it’s actual paper copies, shipped on your very own 750-pound pallet.Per Kottke:

Somerset Maugham: Swami-Loving Third-Rater?

In his 1944 essay “The Saint,” Maugham describes a mostly silent meeting
with the swami, who was “of a dark honey color with close-cropped white
hair and a close-cropped white beard” and wore only a loincloth. When
Maugham said he felt sick and weak, Sri Ramana replied, “Silence is also
conversation.” This and many of the details of his visit found their
way into “The Razor’s Edge.”

Did Branwell Brontë Die Standing Up?

Did Branwell Bronte really die standing up?So says Somerset Maugham.We mentioned earlier that Maugham lists Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights in his book on the 10 greatest novels of all time.  Emily was preceded in death (barely) by her older brother Branwell, and Maugham relates a curious anecdote about his death.

The Ten Greatest Novels of All Time (1948 Edition)

I am holding in my hand (courtesy of Cincinnati’s Mercantile Library) a first edition of Great Novelists and Their Novels, in which author W. Somerset Maugham names his 10 greatest novels of all time.